Page 6 of Zel (The GriMM Tales #2)

“I prefer your breasts though. I prefer everything about you, Zel. I love you.”

It was a shame that was true, because Zel loved Rudy as a friend, but not enough to choose him if he ever got to know choice after the coming month.

He also couldn’t be sure what Rudy would think once he learned Zel had lied to him all this time.

Zel couldn’t be sure what anyone would think, but first, he had to survive his predestined month of betrothal.

However that turned out, this would be the last time he and Rudy would ever be together like this.

Zel had wanted so many times to confess to him, his one true friend, but his parents had cautioned him against it.

It was too great a risk, they’d say. Perhaps Zel’s vain hopes at rebellion were what first pushed him to pursue Rudy when they were younger.

He’d noticed how Rudy’s affectionate glances had become more heated and used his seductive training to encourage it, but always with the caveat, “Just between friends.” Perhaps part of him even wanted to slip up and allow Rudy to discover the truth on his own.

But at the last moment, he would always default to behaving, to doing as he had been told.

“Ah, ah.” Zel grabbed Rudy’s hand that was trying to slip up beneath his petticoats and chemise skirt. He often tried to, but a single tut from Zel was always enough to stop him.

Doing this in the storeroom was risky, maybe more so with a celebration in Zel’s honor happening below, but it would have been riskier if they’d met in his bedroom. Zel hadn’t let Rudy up there since they were fourteen. It would have been too easy to give in.

Rudy groaned at being denied, still rutting against Zel’s leg. “You drive me mad. How can you stand not letting me inside you? I know you want it.”

Zel did, but even offering his ass would have been too dangerous when Rudy might reach for a cunt that wasn’t there.

“I am a virtuous lady,” Zel said, pushing Rudy away so he could hop down from the table and drop to his knees.

“And I intend to stay virtuous until I am wed.” He opened Rudy’s breeches and tore them down to his ankles.

Rudy could hardly complain about lacking access when their nearly daily ritual always ended with him finishing, either by Zel’s mouth or with his hands.

It was Zel who had to wait and finish himself off later with a swift wank.

He longed to know the feel of another’s hand where he most ached for one, or better yet a mouth.

As he sucked Rudy down his throat, he imagined someone else sucking him.

The fantasy had Zel leaking into his chemise and dripping onto the floor. As he lost himself to the hollowing of his cheeks, thoroughly enjoying swallowing Rudy, he hummed to himself, almost unaware he did so.

Rudy held a hand to the back of Zel’s head, massaging the top twists of his braids. It didn’t take long, and once Rudy had spilled down Zel’s throat, he asked, “What was it you were humming, Rapunzel? I didn’t recognize the tune.”

Zel turned from him, reaching up under his layers to tighten the laces of his corset, and then tightened his outer bodice once he was put back together. “Just something I made up to go along with my favorite poem. You know the one.” He sang the start of the same tune, only now he added words.

“ In the stillest night, at dawn’s break, a voice began to lament; sweetly and gently, the night wind carried to me its sound .”

“You composed that?” Rudy asked, finishing adjusting his spectacles and securing his own clothes—breeches, shirt, and vest. The only other layer for a man was linen trunks. Entirely unfair.

“Surely, someone more talented than I will compose a better tune for it someday, but I am fond of my version.” Zel returned to Rudy to kiss him on the mouth. He would be a good husband to someone someday, but not to Zel. “You called me Rapunzel again.”

“Sorry!” Rudy sputtered. “I forget.”

“Funny how no one has trouble remembering to call you Rudy and not Rudolf .”

Rudy sneered at the use of his given name, and Zel pointed at the expression in earnest.

“See! That is how it feels when someone calls me Rapunzel.”

“I know!” Rudy raised his hands in submission. “I am sorry. I called you Rapunzel for nineteen years. Well, I wasn’t really calling you anything until we were three or four, but you get my meaning. I am trying. Although, why don't you correct your parents when they call you it?”

“I... don't know,” Zel admitted. “I just never manage to. It's silly to hesitate. They weren't even the ones who named me. Are those new spectacles?” Zel hadn’t realized until now, but Rudy’s frames looked more pristine than he remembered, almost golden.

“The old ones broke.” Rudy shrugged, adjusting them again with a quick glance aside.

“Oh? How did—”

Rudy tugged Zel closer before he could finish. “Please, let me feel how wet I made you.”

Zel was wet, still dripping, but as much as he wanted that, he couldn’t allow Rudy to feel anywhere near it.

He was tempted. It was their last night, and Rudy deserved to know the truth, but Zel couldn’t risk it.

“Not tonight. Now go before someone catches us. I’ll follow shortly.

If anyone asks, I’m still getting pretty. ”

“You are always pretty. But fine. I thought perhaps today of all days I could change your mind.” Rudy lifted Zel’s hand and kissed his fingers. “Happy birthday, Zel.”

Zel was twenty today, finally a man—or woman to everyone else—but at least he had until tomorrow to be sent to the sorcerer’s tower.

When Rudy released Zel’s hand, he flipped it over and dropped something into it that felt cold and weighty. It was a necklace, gold by the looks of it, with an emerald pendant.

“ Rudy .” Zel held the necklace up to inspect it. “Who did you pickpocket this from? Such a treasure should have been turned over—”

“Do not worry about that. Just enjoy the gift.”

Tears welled up in Zel’s eyes because it wasn’t only that it was a beautiful and clearly valuable piece of jewelry, but that it harkened back to the very first gift Rudy had ever given him.

They were six at the time. They’d played together a little but were not yet close.

Several other children were teasing Zel, including the bully who eventually melted, chanting about how the sorcerer was going to chop him up into his own salad someday.

If any of them knew it was Zel’s birthday, none of them had wished him well but continued to taunt him.

Rudy intervened, chasing them away. The others had been so merciless, they’d pushed Zel to tears, which had only made their taunts worse, saying he’d for certain fail as a member of the guild someday if he was such a “soft and silly girl.” But Rudy cheered him up.

The Great Famine hadn’t fully ravaged the kingdom yet, and they were in a small field of flowers at the edge of the central city, as far as most children were allowed to venture.

Rudy sat with Zel, babbling on about one thing or another while linking a chain of snapdragons.

Their yellow flowers made it almost look like a gold necklace.

Then he affixed the blossom of a green zinnia to act as its pendant and presented it to Zel like a courter.

Happy birthday, Rapunzel.

“I can make you one out of flowers again if you prefer,” the grownup Rudy said, clearly having intended the comparison. “I would do anything for you, Zel.”

“Rudy, I cannot wear this—”

“Not to the celebration, no, but tomorrow, when you go to the tower, wear it in remembrance of me.”

The necklace was truly beautiful, and connected to that precious memory made it even more valuable in Zel’s eyes, but as he slipped it into the pocket of his apron, he had to say, “I have told you many times—”

“To not get my hopes up. I know. You are a free spirit, but my heart does not know any better. I will always love you.”

The sentiment was almost enough to dwindle Zel’s erection.

Almost.

He kissed Rudy’s cheek but still bid him farewell for now.

As soon as Rudy left, Zel hoisted his lower layers to take his cock in hand.

He didn’t think about Rudy while he pumped his prick, smoothing the collection of fluids across his skin.

He didn’t think about anyone. He simply wanted the bliss of oblivion for a while when nothing else was certain, other than that Rudy was setting himself up for disappointment.

Inevitably, as Zel stroked himself to a harried end, a faceless figure entered his mind. He had begged his parents to describe the sorcerer to him, but all they had ever said was that he was tall, dark, and terrifying, and that Zel could not let his fear show when they met.

Hips stuttering, Zel came into his palm, as he imagined the faceless figure licking him clean.

He certainly wouldn’t be getting that treatment from the sorcerer, but the fantasy was better than the reality to come.

In truth, Zel used a rag to clean himself that he then tossed into the corner, telling himself he’d sneak it into the laundry later.

He tidied himself and prepared to head back downstairs, only to nearly collide with his mother when he turned for the hatch.

Second time tonight. He was definitely distracted.

Sophie had brown hair and eyes to match. Aside from sharing his father's bowed lips and slight build, Zel had often been told he looked like her. The scar on Sophie’s cheek did not sully her beauty. Not the sorcerer’s cut. That had eventually healed and faded. Lothar’s was the one that had scarred.

“Rapunzel—”

“Just this once more!” Zel said. “Rudy remains none the wiser.”

“You tempt fate.” She crossed her arms sternly.

“What else can one do other than tempt it when one’s fate is already sealed?”

Sophie did not move to grant Zel leave to the hatch nor did she look away. She barely blinked. “Are you a man today or still a brat?”

“Why, Mother!” Zel curtsied. “I am a lady.”

Sophie threw her arms around Zel’s neck so suddenly that he gasped. They were almost equal in height, although Zel was the tiniest bit taller. He remembered how strange it had been the first time he could look her in the eye.

He brought his arms up around her waist to hug her back.

“That boy loves you too much,” Sophie said. “It is cruel to lead him on.”

“I don’t. I have always been plain with Rudy.

He leads himself on. If he hates me when this is over, I can accept that.

” Zel thought he could accept anything once this was finally finished, but perhaps he wasn’t being truthful that he could accept Rudy’s hatred.

He didn’t want to lose his friend. He didn’t want any of what lay ahead of him other than his freedom.

Sophie was just as fierce of an assassin as Gregor.

They had alternated being Zel’s seconds on missions.

Tonight had simply been Gregor’s turn. Both had taught Zel how to wield a blade, but his mother had taught him how to move so stealthily that not even an eagle’s eye could notice him in the shadows.

Whether either of those skills would be enough to best the sorcerer would be tested soon enough.

“Happy birthday, my sweet boy.” Sophie released him to hand over an object wrapped in cloth.

“Now who’s tempting fate?” Zel asked, since the hatch to the Thieves Guild remained open, though he could see down into it that there was no one skulking below to have overheard.

“Open your present.”

“You and Father already gave me my new dagger.”

“This is just from me.”

Curiously, Zel unwrapped the cloth and found the pristine silver brush his mother had used to untangle his hair since he’d had enough hair to get tangled.

The one the sorcerer let her keep.

“You can be whoever you want to be when this is over, my darling Rapunzel.”

Whoever he wanted?

Even being an adult now, Zel wasn’t sure who that was.

“I might not do away with all my skirts and dresses,” Zel said, for he knew that much was true. “I do like wearing them. Maybe with fewer layers though.”

Sophie laughed and pulled him in for another hug.

“Also, um…”

“Yes, Rapunzel?”

Zel cringed. “Nothing. I love both my presents, Mother. Thank you.”

With so much else about to change, Zel could ask his parents to call him by his preferred name if and when he returned home to them.

When he returned home, successful and free.

There had been much speculation within the guild about why the sorcerer wanted Zel, and why specifically he wanted Zel to ingest all that lettuce, infusing him with some sort of magic, even if not immortality.

The reigning theories were, one: so Zel would be a more delectable meal when the sorcerer devoured his soul on their wedding night; or two: that the sorcerer truly did want a bride who would be healthy and vibrant after eating the heartiest of vegetables for twenty winters when much of the kingdom was malnourished.

Zel hoped for the latter, at least until it all unraveled into attempted murder on his part, because then the sorcerer might be kind to him during the month.

Whatever the truth, whatever the sorcerer honestly wanted, he was not going to get it.

ULRICH

A ll was going according to plan, and at last, Ulrich’s final night alone was upon him.

Tomorrow his betrothed would be brought to the tower, and everything would fall into place over the month ahead. It had been centuries since he had enjoyed company, since he had known any companionship at all.

Ulrich wondered who Rapunzel had grown up to be, but no matter who the child, now an adult, proved to have become, Ulrich would not waver from his plan. However much that plan might need adjusting over the coming days, he would succeed. He was certain of it.

The promise of that, as Ulrich looked out of his tower window toward the villages and city and castle in the distance outside the wood, was enough to make him smile and long for the morn.