Page 26 of Zel (The GriMM Tales #2)

Ten

ZEL

W hat had Ulrich just said?

“You knew that too?” Zel backpedaled, nearly toppling over onto the chaise when his legs hit it. They were in the main room, and being night with only the usual candles and sconces lit, the darker parts of Ulrich looked more contrasting than ever between shadow and light.

He didn’t look angry though. He seemed confused. “Did you think I did not?”

“You wanted a bride.”

“And a bride I received.”

“I’m a man .”

Ulrich scrunched his brow, seeming even more perplexed. “It is not always and certainly not only what lies between one’s legs that makes one a man or woman, Zel.”

“I don’t understand. You don’t care?”

“If you worry I have an aversion to cock, I can assure you I do not.”

“But—”

“Did you not notice in the scenes I showed you that some of my courtiers from the past were male?”

Were they?

“I also told you that my favorite love story is between two men.”

“ The Bard and the Fairy Prince is about two men?” Zel had assumed the bard in the story was a woman. Fairy tale love stories were always between a man and a woman! “But you told my parents—”

“I told your parents that I would unite in marriage with their child should I find them worthy. I actually made no mention of wanting a bride. That was their assumption.”

Zel felt like his knees might fail him at any moment. “You really do not care what I am?”

“Oh, little cabbage…” Ulrich’s voice softened as he took Zel’s hands. “I care that you are you. What else matters?”

This felt too easy, just like Ulrich taking to calling Zel by his preferred name after one and only one correction. “But… you still knew what was under my skirts. How?” He snatched his hands back, leaning as much away from Ulrich as he could with the chaise behind him. “You were watching me.”

“I assure you I was not. I simply knew. I assumed this was how you see yourself, not a lie you sold me like pretending to not be an assassin. Just as names are powerful in this world, Zel, so too is self-perception, and one’s own truth is the only perception of self that matters.”

Zel’s head was spinning. “I don’t know what to say.” Somehow, he was crying, tears streaming down his cheeks unbidden that until now he had managed to keep at bay.

Ulrich swept Zel into his arms and sat them on the chaise.

Zel collapsed against him, sobbing without any sign that he would stop any time soon.

He had never been able to discuss the truth of himself openly.

Even with his parents it had been dangerous to do so for fear of being discovered. Zel was to pretend, and so he had.

But it hadn’t always felt like pretending.

“Here, we are sobering, but we should be clearer headed for this.” Ulrich pressed his left hand to Zel’s forehead. “It can be a bit jarring, but you will feel better.”

Whatever Ulrich did next, it felt sharp and made Zel flinch at first, but then the inebriation that had been lingering was gone. Ulrich pressed the hand to his own forehead and must have done the same for himself.

Being less fuzzy in thought, Zel was able to calm his tears.

“Forgive me for losing my composure.” He took a breath and wiped his face.

Ulrich kept him close, and it felt nice being nestled against him.

“My parents assumed you would expect your bride to be a woman, so they raised me to be one. But I have also honestly felt like one at times, not because I’ve had to pretend.

I’m… neither? Both? I don’t know. I’ve never been able to truly think on it. ”

“Because of me,” Ulrich said softly.

“ No .” Zel turned in Ulrich’s hold and looked up into his starlit eyes and all the ways he sparkled in the dark.

“I don’t think of it like that. They wronged you.

You asked for recompense. We chose to deceive you instead of paying our dues honestly.

Most marriages are contracts. As magically lucky as I may have been over the years, I never thought myself so fortunate as to find what my parents have. ”

Ulrich’s head bent a little closer to Zel’s at the admission. “I still have my secrets, Zel.”

“Would that I could learn them all. In time I would like to. Starting with how you could ever want me knowing my true intentions all along.”

“You were a very charming would-be assassin.”

Zel laughed. “Please know that my heart's desires are greater than my duty. With all my secrets laid bare, I would start over and ask something of you, if you’ll permit me.”

“Ask, and we shall see.”

For all the turmoil of this night, Zel did not hesitate to take hold of Ulrich’s left hand and bring it up beneath his skirts to his bare knee.

“If you truly want me despite knowing my deceptions all this time, I wish to withdraw my first request of you and ask you to take me to bed tonight.” Zel kissed him with an upward surge and coil of his tongue.

Sober and seated now, it was no less thrilling than their first kiss. Ulrich returned the embrace, lips and tongue moving against Zel’s, and his hand crept up to the start of Zel’s thigh.

Then he paused.

“Zel, are you certain—”

“Please, Ulrich, let me have this. For me. Because I want it. If you do?” Zel blinked past the lingering moisture in his eyes and waited for Ulrich’s answer.

He was stunning, and whatever terror he could evoke in others, when they were alone, Zel saw only Ulrich’s beauty. “I do.”

Zel huffed a laugh at the apt wording he’d prompted, and in the parting of his lips, Ulrich licked his way between them again.

Now that they were home, sober, and bared open to one another, this kiss felt different, heated but tentative.

Ulrich hadn’t known another’s kiss or touch in centuries.

Zel hadn’t known either from anyone other than Rudy.

And because Zel’s magic could ease Ulrich’s pain, it made him feel special in a way he had never truly embraced before.

Ulrich’s cursed hand plumped to life with a brush of Zel’s braids, while his other hand stole higher up Zel’s thigh.

Self-perseveration honed from deflecting Rudy still made Zel feel like he needed to redirect the advance of that hand.

But not this time. Not with Ulrich. Zel could allow the slow ascent and push of fabric, lifting the layers to reveal his calves, and knees, and thighs, which Zel parted to permit Ulrich’s hand to move center.

Again, Ulrich paused.

“May I?” he whispered. “May I touch you where no one else has?”

“ Yes .”

While it was the left hand with sharp nails, not claws, that found Zel’s hardening length, Ulrich was still careful with their points as he curled his fingers tight and stroked with the base of his thumb up the shaft.

“ Oh …” Zel moaned at the first tantalizing tingle. It was so different from touching himself, and without meaning to, he began thrusting into Ulrich’s strokes.

Ulrich grabbed Zel’s hips with his blackened arm and tugged, upending him onto the chaise. With Zel laid out, Ulrich lifted his skirts fully, up past the bob of his cock that he continued to stroke. The pad of Ulrich’s thumb pressed the deepest and circled Zel’s slit.

“ Ohhh …” Zel moaned louder, head falling limp upon the pillow. There wasn’t room to lie side by side, but Ulrich climbed atop Zel and straddled his knees.

He waved the fingers of his cursed hand, and several strands of Zel’s hair floated out of his braids, causing some of the cornflowers woven there to fall like apple blossoms in the spring.

Ulrich conducted the strands as he did during their daily routine, commanding the ends of the loose locks to wrap around his wrist. His claws were only as sharp as the other hand’s nails when Zel’s magic held the curse at bay.

Reaching between Zel’s legs with his right hand then, Ulrich cupped and fondled Zel’s sac while the other hand hastened its strokes.

It was everything Zel had envisioned but never believed he could have with another, let alone with the sorcerer in the wood.

He was soon set to panting, breaths coming shallower and far too constricted.

“U-Ulrich… I need this corset off .”

It popped as it unlaced with another wave of Ulrich’s fingers.

Much better.

Zel’s outer bodice was loosened as well, and though the layers remained, they gave way to the ascent of Ulrich’s currently healthy hand dragging up beneath them along Zel’s skin, higher and higher past his navel and ribs.

Nethers exposed under Ulrich’s heated stare, Zel had never felt more seen. He heaved heavier breaths, nodding frantically when Ulrich paused.

“More?” Ulrich asked.

“ Please .”

“I would see your golden locks unbound around you first with fewer layers to hide your body from me.”

“Undress me then!” Zel demanded. “You can loosen my braids as easily as you did my bodice.”

“ You can.” Ulrich took Zel’s hands, beginning a familiar motion, as if to remind Zel of the magic he could employ. “Unbind the braids yourself, while I savor your unveiling.”

Zel’s hair had already started to lift, but when Ulrich released him to begin the final unlacing and removal of his clothing, Zel hesitated. He had never controlled his magic entirely on his own.

“You can do it without me,” Ulrich coaxed. His fingers, matching in appearance with some of Zel’s hair still wrapped around his cursed wrist, were enthralling to watch. Pulling at the cords holding Zel’s bodice together. Sliding the bodice from Zel’s shoulders. Removing Zel of his petticoats.

“Y-you distract me,” Zel said.

“You can do it,” Ulrich repeated, continuing his slow disrobing of Zel’s body. He paused to press a kiss to Zel’s lips. “Go on, my darling little cabbage, my Zel… let down your hair for me.”

The heat in Zel’s belly spread outward in an instant, and as he raised his arms and flared his fingers, his hair began to dance. It lifted and unraveled itself, stretching above them like twisted fabric unfurling in the wind until its canopy was enough to block out some of the moonlight.