She smiled and it was so uninspired, so put on, that his lip curled in instant revulsion.
“You made me thusly, surely this body”—she traced a slim hand down the length of her svelte form—“tempts you.” Her voice dropped an octave, becoming huskier and what he could only assume she meant to be sexy—problem was it sounded to him like a woman straining from constipation. Her fingers plucked at the laces around her breasts.
“Stop.” He shook his head. “I can promise you you’re doing nothing more than embarrassing yourself.”
Now there were tears shimmering in her eyes. Nausea rolled like bile in his gut at her theatrics. His amusement with her had run its course and he was well beyond the point of caring.
“You cannot do this to me, you promised—”
“And I delivered.” Jerking upright, he nodded. “I kept up my end of the bargain, you did not. The contract is now null and void.”
The moment the words were spoken, a shimmering wave of incandescent light rained upon her. She shrieked, dropping to her already gashed-up knees as her hands flew to her face. Her skin shifted like melting wax, reforming and reshaping her from what she now was to what she’d once been.
When the light died, she blinked up at him. Her face was plump—hardly fat, but definitely fuller. Her skin was dull, her hair greasy and lifeless. The chit wasn’t the foulest creation known to man by any means, but those who came to him rarely believed reality but rather their own perception of the truth.
She saw herself as hideous to behold and had been willing to trade her soul for a chance at comeliness.
Shrieking, she covered her eyes with her forearm. “You’ve ruined me,” she cried. “You swore to me, Rumpel. You swore and I did all that you asked me to do. I won this gauntlet.”
With a scoff he straddled his bike. “You can find your own way home.”
“What?” She shot to her feet, the dress that’d fit her so well just a day earlier now had to be held in place so as not to expose more of herself than was seemly. “I’m several days walk from home. At the very least—”
“I owe you nothing more. Be grateful, mouse, that I didn’t kill you for wasting my time.” With a final glare in her direction, he revved his stallion and left. Her screams echoed behind him.
There were only a few names left on his list. His heart clenched as the muscle in his jaw tensed. The blast of wind against his face as he rode failed to calm his nerves as it normally did.
Riding pockets of air currents, he streaked across the sky like a hellish blaze of fire and brimstone. Somewhere in Kingdom was the woman who’d end his curse. It seemed impossible to believe that she might possibly come from the loins of one Gerard Caron, but if she was here, there was nothing and no one that would prevent him from doing any and all manner of vile things to possess her.
No matter how, he meant to see this nightmare come to an end.
“The devil’s come to collect his due, Caron.” He laughed and his bike roared.
Chapter One
“I forbid this!” Danika shrieked, gazing furiously at a smirking Rumpelstiltskin. The blond demigod was lounging on his steel stallion from hell with his hands clasped firmly behind his head, looking for all the world as if he were the cat that ate the canary.
The black leather pants he wore fit him like second skin, and the white shirt outlined the sharp planes and grooved demarcations of a body honed by a master sculptor. No one was really sure whether Rumpel was as devastatingly wicked as he appeared or if the demonic little imp had simply glamoured himself to appear thusly, but one thing was certain, he was as evil as he was beautiful.
The ground beneath her feet rumbled as his bike purred, the clouds were gray and gathering with the first stirrings of an apocalyptic storm, and a bolt of lightning struck a massive oak not ten yards from them. The unmistakable odor of ozone permeated the air, making her fight an urge to sneeze. Holding her ground, refusing to be cowed by his garish display of power, she balled her hands into fists and gave him a withering glare.
Thankfully, she’d managed to route the imp on his way into Gerard and Betty’s village, otherwise his show might have actually succeeded in scaring off the townsfolk. Danika herself was merely cross; she too had magic and could wield it just as sharply as he if she so desired.
“Oh come now. Just because you’re Gerard’s godmother doesn’t give you any right to interfere in this. In case you’ve forgotten, you don’t actually get to tell me what to do.” His gleaming ride spewed a tail of fire from its chrome pipes. Red headlights seemed to almost blink back at her.