Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25724 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25724 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
She’s quiet, waiting.
I exhale slowly. “I was banished from my realm.”
Her brow furrows. “Your realm?”
I nod, jaw tight. “I come from another place very similar to this one. A world where orcs like me had a purpose. Until the Border Wars ended and the peacekeepers decided we were expendable.”
She blinks at me, stunned. “You’re from another world?”
“Yeah.” I glance at her. “After the war, they exiled us. I didn’t take it well. I drank too much. Fought too often. Ended up in places I shouldn’t have been, doing things I shouldn’t’ve done. Got into a fight with a necromancer’s zombie, killed it, and that landed me in a void prison. Magic holding cell. There was no time, no sound, just me and my regrets.” I pause, then add bitterly, “When they let me out, they didn’t send me home. They opened a portal and shoved me through.”
The further I get from the incident, the clearer that particular memory becomes. I was cast out, shoved into her world to be forgotten, just as she’s been chained to her tower to wither away.
Her lips part, eyes wide. “And you landed here?”
I nod. “New world, new rules, same old ghosts.”
She stares at me, eyes soft and wide like she’s seeing me for the first time. “That’s... incredible.”
“It’s punishment,” I mutter.
She smiles. “Or maybe it’s fate.”
Chapter 6
Brannock
“Fate?” I scoff. I’ve never put much stock in that fairy tale. I prefer to deal with reality—with what I can see, touch, and destroy all on my own.
She shrugs. “You landed here after leaving your prison. Maybe I’m trapped, and maybe you’re angry, and maybe this forest wants to eat us both, but…” Her voice grows quieter. “It doesn’t feel like a coincidence.”
My chest tightens. I’ve faced war, pain, magic that could rip your soul apart, and none of it made me feel as exposed as this woman looking at me like I’m worthy of something more than disdain and fear.
“Maybe,” I say gruffly. “But that doesn’t make me a good man.”
She holds my gaze. “Doesn’t make you a bad one, either.”
I scrub a hand through my damp hair. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of. Things I can’t take back.”
She doesn’t flinch. “So have I.”
I turn my head fully to look at her, brow raised. “What could you possibly have done? You’ve been locked in a tower your whole life.”
She lifts her chin, eyes sparkling with mock solemnity. “I once ate an entire cake by myself and blamed it on a squirrel.”
“A squirrel?”
“It was a very convincing lie. Dame Gothel believed me. I even put what looked like tiny squirrel droppings in the icing.” She grins. “Not real droppings, obviously.”
A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it. Loud and sharp and real.
She smirks. “See? Not so innocent.”
She has no idea just how gods-damned innocent she is.
I shake my head, still chuckling. “You’re a dangerous woman.”
“Oh, absolutely.” She nudges my knee with hers. “A menace to society.”
I sober slightly, the amusement still lingering at the edges of my voice. “It doesn’t bother you? That I’ve killed?”
She’s quiet for a moment before saying softly, “It bothers me that you carry it like a weight you don’t think you’re allowed to set down.”
Her words hit me like a punch wrapped in velvet.
“I may have been locked in a tower, but I’m not completely oblivious,” she continues. “Dame Gothel brings books and magazines sometimes. Or the latest copy of The Fable Forest Gazette if she’s feeling generous. I know who won last year’s pie fair, all the gossip from Screaming Woods, and that Fable Forest’s mayor may or may not be dating a banshee.”
“Is he?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
I shake my head, grinning again. Gods, she’s something else.
Her smile fades, and her eyes flick toward the stove. “Sometimes, I’m scared I’ve been forgotten. That the world keeps turning without me.”
The firelight catches the sadness in the purple-blue shimmer of her eyes, making my chest ache. She’s everything this place is not—alive, curious, kind. And for some reason I can’t understand, she sees something in me I never thought worth looking for.
I shift closer, not touching, but close enough that her lavender scent weaves around me like an intoxicating spell. “You haven’t been forgotten, Rapunzel.”
She swallows. “You don’t know that. Maybe the world never knew I existed at all.”
“I do.” I meet her gaze. “Because I found you.” She exists–real, warm, and bright. Gods, the world couldn’t forget her if it knew her. It’s simply not possible.
Her fingers twitch against the rug, like she’s fighting the urge to reach for me. Something flickers across her face. Hope? Disbelief? Fear? As if the only thing more terrifying than being alone is not being alone anymore.
We sit there in a silence that hums with unsaid things. A quiet ache unfurls in my gut, a longing I haven’t felt in years. Not only for her delectable body but for the closeness, the trust, the soft weight of being wanted.