The gleam in his liquid amber eyes made it feel like she could hardly take a steady breath. Stories of this man, of his cruel nature and the things he did to those who signed their souls into his keeping, ran in perpetual motion through her mind. Dalia had warned her to keep far away from Rumpel and she knew she should, suspected that if she had any hope of getting back to her family safely, then entangling herself with him was a bad, bad idea.
She cleared her throat and lifted the silver dome in front of her. Reaching for a slice of thick, maple-scented bacon, she bit down. Sweet and smoky and crunchy, just like her father would make it; it was perfect and delicious and a good way to give herself time to think while she chewed.
Why was he dragging this thing out? All she wanted at this point was to get to the task, see what exactly it was that he had in store for her. Instead he was plying her with food and talk, why? What was his motive, his endgame? There had to be one.
“No retort on that silky tongue of yours?” He grinned and then drank from a glass of orange juice.
Grabbing a knife and fork, she scooped at the eggs pretending he’d not said anything about her tongue.
“Or perhaps you’d prefer to slide that tongue of yours along my—”
The utensils clattered from her fingers as she glared at him. “What is your problem?”
His lips twitched and she hated that she was so viscerally aware of the man that it was easy to note he had a lower lip slightly fuller than his top one. That there was a slight cleft to his chin and that somehow he’d shaved but still managed to have that shadow of stubble that made her fingers itch to trace the length of his jaw. Grabbing hold of the edge of the table, she glowered.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Never had a man make you feel as I do?”
Food forgotten, she got to her feet. “I’m done here. Take me to the challenge, please.”
He licked his front teeth, eyeing her hard before finally giving a nonchalant shrug. “As you wish, though you’ll want to eat, trust me.”
“I’m not hungry.”
And it was true; what little she’d managed to consume now sat like a stone in her gut. She was a mass of nerves, and being so close to him wasn’t helping at all.
An immediate transformation overcame him then. No more was he dripping that sexual magnetism—now he was deadly serious. His features were stern, cold even.
With a snap of his fingers, the food disappeared as it had last night. “Come with me.”
Turning on his heel, he didn’t glance back to see if she followed. He led her through a winding maze of corridor after corridor and each step only increased her anxiety. Her heart was racing, her palms so sweaty she had to continually rub them down the front of her dress. Again, just as every other time, there was no one lingering about the castle. It was vast and eerily empty. Rows of tall glass cases—easily as tall as Rumpel himself—lined the walls, each one holding some item. In one was a knight’s suit of armor, in another a marble stand with a jade vase resting atop it, in a third was a stand with a crystal skull. On and on and on it went, treasures beyond imagining filling each case.
Everywhere she turned, she was surrounded by wealth, by jewels and gold and the smell of lemony wax and the rich scent of myrrh. Flickering lanterns swinging from hooks was the only light they had.
The carpet beneath their feet was so thick it completely muted their footsteps and it seemed almost like a soundless dream. Shayera went from looking at wonders to staring at his back, at the broad width of his shoulders, the long length of his hair. He was a study in opposites—snarling in one breath, laughing in another. He rode a magicked steed and dressed in leather and jeans, and now he looked as princely as Dalia had claimed he was.
Huffing, she turned her eyes. The last thing she needed was to wonder too much about him; wondering led to curiosity, curiosity led to emotion, emotion led to bad, bad things.
She’d been curious once before and had very nearly died because of it. Hamish had been crazed. She’d thought him her friend, had never expected he’d turn on her as he had. If her father hadn’t heard her screams, she dreaded to think where she’d be now.
Shivering, she hugged her arms to her chest and that’s when she noticed another case. It wasn’t so much the case that caught her eye but the contents of it.
Mostly because everything else had been so grand: dragons prepared by a taxidermist with jewels embedded in their scales; swirling metallic ash that she had no doubt was some form of destructive agent; genie lamps; golden apples; ancient-looking tomes that, even encased within glass as they were, almost seemed to pulse with some sort of dark power; and then an ecru-colored, moth-bitten shawl that in no way appeared special.
Frowning, she stopped in front of it. “What is this, Rumpel?” she asked, curious enough to finally break the thick silence.
At first she thought that maybe he wouldn’t stop or might pretend he hadn’t heard her.
But he turned, and not looking at her, shook his head. “It is nothing.” His deep voice echoed down the vastness of the stone walls.
But she hadn’t missed the clenching of his fingers and the tensing of a muscle in his cheek.