Mom was the only woman to ever fuck over Rumpel Stiltz. Like mother, like daughter, right?
“This oughta be interesting,” Wolfe grumbles under his breath, crossing his arms. I can’t stop thinking about him with those double revolvers, firing shots into the hellhound. He might be a dickhead, but he’s also a bit of badass. I’ll remember that if he ever unfreezes enough to fuck me.
“So how do we do this?” I ask, rubbing my hands together. The contract is pretty specific about certain things…like how many times we have to, uh, try to make that firstborn child in the first three days. What happens if we don’t. But as far as turning my wish of spinning straw to gold, into becoming the vampire queen of House Verenim, that’s up to me.
“We give you the magic,” Vyce says, looking down at me with this mischievous sparkle in his eyes that makes my throat feel tight. I can already imagine him in my bed again, his warm hand gliding up my side, his hot breath on my throat. Are these guys sure I’m not getting the better end of this deal? “You make the rest happen.”
“And how exactly does this magic work?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest and watching the three of them with interest. I wondered if they’d act different once the contract was signed. Vyce and Sorrow look much the same; Wolfe looks like he’d rather crawl into a hole and die. Wonder what that’s about? “Do I get the Midas touch or something?”
“Not exactly,” Vyce says, his lids drooping, his mouth curving into the most wicked of smiles. “You asked specifically to turn straw into gold, so that’s the skill you’ll have.”
“I don’t know how to spin shit,” I tell him, raising an eyebrow. “Or even what one uses to spin. That shit is ancient tech.”
“You want a straw-to-gold spinning app, you millennial?” Sorrow asks with a grin. There’s a tightness to his jaw though, an edginess to the way he moves that says I definitely got to him last night. Not sure if he’s pissed or just sexually frustrated. The contract specifically denies all three men and me the right to sleep around during our arrangement. So while Sorrow could’ve gone out last night and found another girl, I doubt it. Nah, he’d be in a much better mood if he had.
“Technically, I’m on the cusp between being a young millennial and an old Gen Z’er.” I grin broadly. “So, yes, I would like a straw-to-gold app, please.”
“Aw, well, unfortunately technology and magic don’t mix,” Sorrow says, picking up a small glass bottle from the edge of the desk. As soon as I see it, my heart freezes inside my chest. Flickers of childhood memory race through my mind in dizzying speed. I can see that tiny heart-shaped bottle with the gold stopper tied to the rearview mirror in whatever car my mother happened to be driving at the time.
It would sometimes put me to sleep, that easy, swaying motion. I’d watch the sunlight reflect off the glass and cast prisms over my skin. Twenty years later and he’s still using the same packaging. Clearly, Rumpel hasn’t heard that both millennials and Gen Z’ers like their products to be catered to them specifically. So old-fashioned.
“Instead, we have this lovely mix of Rumpel’s raw magic and blood. Hold out your hand.” I do as Sorrow asks and present my palm, shivering as he takes it in one careful hand and rubs his thumb over my knuckles. “You won’t even need a spinning wheel. How incredible is that? Magic’s progressed just as far and fast as technology. He uses his teeth to uncork the little bottle, the stopper and the brush attached to it reminiscent of nail polish. Oddly enough, it smells like it, too, this burning chemical stink mixed with the coppery sweetness of blood.
Sorrow sets the bottle on the desk and then removes the stopper from his teeth, never letting go of my hand in the process. He paints my skin with the gold liquid, leaves it shimmering like gold leaf across the flesh. I use every ounce of me that is vampire to stay perfectly still, refusing to let my fingers switch in the slightest, or my hand to tremble.
Those blue eyes of Sorrow’s bore into me as he paints with an agonizing slowness that makes my teeth hurt and my cunt clench in anticipation. I was planning to hit the castle up after this, but maybe there’s a little extra time for a romp in the hay. Get it. Because straw and hay are basically the same shit, right?
Sorrow paints my entire left hand gold, from my fingertips to my wrist, each stroke of the brush a sensual kiss against my heated flesh. When he’s finished, we switch hands and start all over again. By the time Sorrow’s finished, the room is thick with desire; it lands in a dark haze over everything.
“Done,” he says, letting go of me and stepping back. His grin as he replaces the stopper in the bottle is priceless, smug asshole male all the way. “Keep this with you for when the magic runs low.” Sorrow hands the bottle to me and I slip it inside my purse. “As long as the contract is valid—which will be forever as long as you hold true on your end—this bottle will fill with magic. Just paint your hands the way I’ve done, and you’ll be able to touch straw...and turn it into gold.”
“Well, that was easy,” I quip as Sorrow steps even closer to me and puts one of his hands on either of my upper arms. Heat races through me, invading every inch of my body from my painted fingertips down to the toes I stuffed in some ridiculous four-inch black heels so my ass would look even better in these pants.
“That wasn’t the hard part,” he jokes as he takes one of my golden hands and places it over the bulge in his crotch. Gold flakes peel from my flesh and drift in the air like autumn leaves.
“Wow, what a line,” I scoff, giving the bulge a slight squeeze before stepping back and rubbing my hands together to rid them of the rest of the gold paint. “But I’ve decided I’m going to give this new power a test run before I participate in any of the, uh, other requirements.”
“No need to leave for that,” Wolfe barks out, grabbing a small paper bag from inside the desk drawer and handing it over to me. I take it as he rolls up the contract and sticks it into a metal tube. I have no idea where it goes or what he does with it, but I don’t really care. I’m as bound to that piece of paper as I am to any other that I’ve signed in the past. Only a sense of obligation and duty keeps me from reneging on those. And to be quite frank, it doesn’t keep me from doing it often.
I yank a handful of the straw from the bag and stare at it as it warms and melts in my fingers, dripping in big molten drops to the carpet. Each drop...has the same shiny shimmer of metal.
“Sorry about the floor,” I whisper as the liquid oozes between my fingertips. “Not positive that there’s any surefire way to get gold stains out of carpet.”
“I’m sure the worth of the actual gold on the carpet itself will cover the cost of the repair,” Vyce purrs as I wait for the metal to cool, and peel the strange shape off my fingers. I drop the lump of metal on the desk, three tall, dark, and handsome vampires standing in a half-circle around me.
Three vampires that I’ll be sharing a bed with...at least until I’m officially crowned queen. And then, well, then we’ll see what happens after that. Eventually, they’ll figure out they aren’t getting a baby from me.
Rumpel might come.
Deep down, I realize I might have ulterior motives.
Rumpel will come. The Rumpel that charged my mother her only child in exchange for saving her life, sent her on the run, and then had her killed years later. Because it could’ve only been him. Who else would’ve had the motive to order my mother ripped limb from limb in her own home?
There’s even a chance the three guys in front of me were the ones that did it.
I exhale sharply and roll the top of the paper bag down.
“I’m off to see the king,” I say and then pause. “Well, really I’m off to see my friend Harry for a celebratory drink and then I’m off to see the king. Wish me luck.”