Page 25 of Zel (The GriMM Tales #2)

The shadow of Ulrich appeared, a brief flicker of his true form showing itself, as he swept Zel into his arms and shoved the man aside in one graceful motion.

Whatever else he had done to the man, whether magical or just brute force, the lout was sent scurrying for one of the exits, holding a hand to his mouth like he might expel everything he had drunk.

Zel was in awe. The song was an upbeat waltz, modern within the past few decades, yet Ulrich, holding Zel close, fell into step with those around them effortlessly. The difference was that his hand at the small of Zel’s back was welcome and did not wander.

“Thank you, my lord.”

“You follow my lead beautifully, Zel. Assuming I have permission to continue dancing with you beyond the rescue?”

“You do,” Zel said.

Ulrich danced far better than the drunken oaf had, well enough to draw a different kind of attention to them, but once the band moved on to a second song, Zel realized they had wound up back at the bar.

He mourned no longer dancing with Ulrich, but the bar had been his goal, and the barkeep pushed fresh goblets their way as if having expected them.

Perhaps he had witnessed what happened and knew to have drinks ready.

Perhaps Ulrich continued to command the night’s events.

They claimed their cups, but Ulrich grabbed hold of Zel around the waist again and danced with him one-armed back to their table. They laughed when they collided with its edge upon reaching it, but not a single drop spilled from their goblets.

They drank. They listened to the music. And there was soon no question as to whether or not Ulrich was using his magic, for the air in the tavern began to sparkle like twinkling stars.

Swirls of colored lights sprang to life in unexpected corners, twirling along with the dancers.

It was like being in the heavens, on a night when more than stars dotting inky blackness could be seen, but swaths of pink and teal and violet.

Like Ulrich himself when no disguise dampened his brilliance.

Zel was delighted to watch it all with Ulrich beside him. A few less inebriated patrons noticed the illusions, most assuming that this elf or that one must be responsible, for their race was known for creating beautiful enchantments. The drunker among the patrons simply enjoyed it.

“It’s lovely,” Zel said, as the next song began. “The magic even moves to the music.”

“You added your magic,” Ulrich said, leaning in closer to Zel, “so I added mine.”

“ My magic?” Zel questioned. They were close enough that, when he glanced up, the barest lean from Ulrich could have bumped their noses.

“Your voice. You have been humming along to the songs.”

“Have I? I didn’t realize.”

“You have a lovely voice. Though everything about you is magical to me, Zel.”

Zel was feeling warmer by the moment. “Praise be to the lettuce?”

Ulrich chuckled. “Oh no. You surpass anything mere rapunzel could give you, little cabbage. That is why you are Zel.”

Zel felt warmer still, but in his eyes like earlier.

In his chest. In his gut. Between his legs.

What magic was this, he wondered, for his whole body felt aflame, and he wanted to launch himself at Ulrich as much as part of him feared he might burst into tears.

“Drink can make one… truthful,” he said, bold enough to move his hand onto Ulrich’s thigh.

“But also feverish. Flush. My virtue is crumbling, my lord, for all I can think about is getting on my knees beneath this table and taking you into my mouth.”

Ulrich’s disguised eyes flashed with their usual violet fire and swirling galaxies.

His chest heaved, not with need for breath, but with the same rising desire.

He seemed about to say something, or equally like he might pull Zel to him and kiss him.

Zel leaned closer too, enough that a kiss, whether chaste or bruising, would be so easy to claim. But then he might never want to stop.

“I’m sorry!” Zel lurched away before any kiss could be taken.

What was he doing letting himself want and wonder?

At least something he could blame on the drink was a sudden need to relieve himself.

“I… I fear I am going to ruin this moment far worse than postponing it if I don’t make my way to the latrines just now. ”

Ulrich huffed a laugh. He was clearly disappointed but nodded.

Zel did need to piss, but he was also being a coward again. He had to clear his mind and think through a plan to redirect their conversation so he might covertly gain the knowledge he sought: how to kill the unkillable, though what he really wanted was just what he had said.

He wondered what Ulrich would taste like.

Zel couldn’t risk using the actual latrines, since the room was communal.

An outhouse in the alley was more commonly used by female patrons, but when Zel got outside, it was occupied.

His urgent need brought him around back to a narrower alley, where he hoisted his skirts to relieve himself against the wall.

The heat in his eyes refused to go away, and he found himself sniffling and blinking rapidly to keep any actual tears from falling.

He had to focus. He had to be smart. He could slip beneath their table to pleasure Ulrich like he had teased, like he had done for Rudy so many times, but if he did, he knew he would want more like he had never wanted anything before.

As Zel finished emptying himself of all he had drank, he could have sworn he felt eyes on him.

He whirled in the direction where he sensed someone, certain he hadn’t hiked his skirts enough that anyone could have seen or realized the truth.

But was someone there, hiding in the dark?

Was some fool about to try robbing him? In case they were, Zel reached beneath his skirts to retrieve his dagger.

“Well now, look who’s without her fancy dance partner.”

Zel froze, for the voice had not come from in front of him where he watched the dark, but behind.

He turned, not surprised to discover the oaf from earlier stumbling toward him.

After likely spilling his guts somewhere nearby, the man hadn’t run off with his tail between his legs.

Unfortunate. For him . Because here Zel didn’t need to worry about drawing attention.

“Whatcha gonna do with that blade, pretty petal?” the man asked, since Zel made no move to hide his dagger, and in fact raised it at the ready. Why did it always come back to that goddamned name? “Betcha I got something better to skewer you with.” He reached down to grab his own crotch.

Charming. “I doubt it,” Zel said, “but you are right that something needs to be skewered.”

If Ulrich was the shadowed night, then Zel was what lurked within, striking before his prey could react, with a crouch and a spring upward, and then his dagger lodged right through the man’s hand still holding his cock.

Zel twisted and yanked the blade free, but while the man would bleed out quickly, it was not as instantly fatal as other blows Zel might have struck.

He watched the horror fill the man’s face, let it sink in for what precious moments Zel could enjoy it that, no, the man was not going to survive this, but before the release of death, he'd have to endure the loss of his manhood.

When it all finally became real to the man and he opened his mouth to scream, Zel sliced upward across his throat to silence him.

With a quick spin out of the way, Zel avoided the spray of blood that followed.

The man toppled, too much in shock to clutch his neck, when he was already clutching his ruined genitals.

The brutality of the kill would warn people it had been done by a Thieves Guild assassin.

Not all kills required cleaners. Some were left as messages, and no one would know that Zel struck the blow.

He wiped off his dagger on the back of the man’s shirt before re-sheathing it.

His ninth kill. The one that was supposed to be Ulrich.

If Zel didn’t watch the light leave the man’s eyes, did it count? Did he not want for it to count? Or did he want this to be the ninth, so Ulrich might not become a number at all?

“Anyone who would attempt to take another without permission deserves only death.”

Zel spun again, first down the other end of the alley, where he had initially thought he sensed someone, but he still couldn’t make out anyone hiding there.

Then he spun the other way, where Ulrich was on approach, having dropped his guise and looking absolutely ravishing in the moonlight with how he sparkled like the magic he had made dance to the music.

Zel adjusted his skirts, unsure how high they had been while he put his dagger away, but Ulrich couldn’t possibly have seen anything. Could he? Even if he hadn't, he had seen Zel coldly murder someone, leaving no second guesses about what the Thieves Guild truly was.

“M-my lord—”

“Might I ask, little cabbage,” Ulrich began as he descended upon Zel without further glance at the body nor any care that it laid there, “for permission to complete the kiss you denied me inside?”

Heat flourished once more within Zel. Even beside a piss-stained wall and fresh corpse, the request for a kiss lost none of its magic. Perhaps it was the alcohol buzzing through Zel’s brain, but he could imagine no other answer than a breathlessly uttered, “Yes.”

And Ulrich kissed him.

ULRICH

W hatever extent of chastity’s chains Zel had already shaken free of were made clearer by how explosively their tongues collided with that first precious kiss.

Zel was a malicious marvel, cold and calculating and precise. But the receiver of Zel’s skills had earned it. Over the many centuries Ulrich's immortality had gifted him, he had learned that one truth remained in every age.

Some people deserved to die.

Zel was not one of them, nor was Ulrich’s little cabbage deserving of a worse fate.

Ulrich clutched Zel to him, right hand no longer gloved, with black and sunken skin freely exposed and claws digging into the firm fabric and boning of Zel’s corset.

The heat from the slighter body against him, the rapid pulse of Zel’s heart, loud and vibrating as their chests collided as passionately as their mouths had, was wonderful.

This was no chaste peck, testing waters.

Ulrich had been teased with a filthy promise of scuffed knees and an open mouth.

Whether an honest declaration or drunken musings, it made him ravenous to have Zel, any part of his betrothed, as little or as much as might be offered.

Zel’s panting in the wake of their kiss only increased that want.

“You do not think it vile what I did?” Zel asked.

“He was the vile one. You, little cabbage, have proved a harbinger of justice.” Ulrich reached for Zel again but winced as the veins in his arm pulsed.

Zel saw the added glow, the pain it caused, and took hold of Ulrich’s blackened hand. Still breathless from their kiss, Zel lifted the hand to press wetted lips to Ulrich’s fingertips, and even drew one into his mouth, claw and all, keeping eye contact while tonguing it.

They knew Zel’s hair plumped Ulrich’s arm to life, as did Zel’s blood. Now, it was proven Zel’s saliva did the same, and Ulrich’s arm wasn’t the only part of him growing plump.

“Better, my lord?” Zel asked, for even when Ulrich’s finger hit open air again, the lingering wetness kept the hand looking whole and alive.

“Remarkably so.”

“You’ve never confirmed if there is a way to permanently save you from your pain.”

“Besides you?” Ulrich grinned. “Only removing it.”

“Your arm?”

“Yes. Then I would no longer feel its pain, for I would die.”

Zel’s eyes bulged at the admission. “But… how could it be removed if you are impervious to damage while you have it? Isn’t its sacrifice what makes you immortal?”

“It is. But if a strong enough person of natural-born magic drained me of my power the way I drain souls…” Ulrich slowly used his black hand to pull Zel’s braids out from within the cloak to stroke the bundle, thus keeping its plumpness even as the saliva dried.

“I would be weak enough to make it possible.” He tried to lean in for another kiss, but Zel withdrew.

“I… I’m sorry.”

“Zel? What—”

A presence snapped Ulrich’s attention down the other end of the alley. Someone was there. Watching? Listening? Maybe merely trying to stay out of sight and too scared to run, but as tempted as Ulrich was to slaughter whoever it was for intruding, he had no patience for further interruption.

“Come. We are not alone,” he said, and after pulling Zel to him, he blinked them back to the tower.

Zel gasped at the sudden change in location and pushed from Ulrich’s arms as if feeling guilty for having clung to him.

“Please, Zel, it is I who should be sorry, not you. I ask for too much when we are both intoxicated. I tried so hard to not want you.”

“To… not want me?” Zel turned back to Ulrich.

What a pretty little liar Zel was. But much as Ulrich might want to give in to the temptations before him, he knew the truth, the real reason for Zel being here, and their little dance of push and pull was nothing but a ruse.

Wasn't it?

“It doesn’t matter,” Ulrich said, “because you do not want me. Not really.”

“Ulrich…”

The utterance of his name, whispered back at him, when Zel more often said, “my lord,” urged Ulrich to meet Zel’s gaze.

“I do want you. I want you more than I expected I could ever want anyone.”

There was no lie, no clever subterfuge in the rawness of those words. How… surprising. “I think you mean that. But then what causes you to recoil again?”

Zel looked at the floor.

“Is it that you truly wish to wait until we are wed to do more than kiss and tease one another? I do not believe that. Your desire is too strong. Even contrary to your mission.” Ulrich held Zel’s stare when their eyes locked again.

“I do not fault you for your secret intentions here, little cabbage.”

“You… you knew? Of course you knew.” Zel squeezed watering eyes shut. “Yet somehow that does not feel like the worst secret I’m keeping. Because you would not want me if you knew all my lies. If you knew… the truth of your bride’s birth.”

Ulrich studied Zel, confused, until he realized how tightly Zel clutched the many layers of petticoats and skirts.

“Oh, Zel. That you needn’t ever have worried about.

” Ulrich approached and bent low enough to whisper intimately, “Since the day you arrived at my tower, I have been more than eager to discover my bride's cock.”