Giggling, Dalia spread her arm. “Well, whaddya think?”
The entirety of Rumpel’s castle was coldly beautiful, but she hadn’t ever felt truly at home. Not until this moment. The room was done in soft shades of rose and seafoam green. The walls weren’t the typical, cold black stone as the rest of the place, here there was wood, and the world smelled of cedar, and there was the crackle and snap of a flame in a hearth. Rich, woven tapestries depicting scenes of maidens frolicking and dancing decorated the walls. Here there was no furniture; what there was was a wooden dais not much higher than five, six inches at most off the ground. It was a good twenty or so inches wide and at its center was a patina-stained bronze bowl, inside of it nothing more than water.
Frowning, she turned toward Dalia. “What is this?”
“It’s where you learn your happiness. This room is yours to enjoy whenever you need it.”
“Are you leaving?” she asked as the girl turned.
“I’ll be back when you need me.” Then she vanished in a puff of smoke.
Sitting cross-legged, not really sure what she was doing but longing for just a moment of joy, Shayera peered over the bowl. The room was dark, too dark to see a reflection. And yet she did, in exacting detail—from the freckles scattered along her nose and cheekbones, the fullness of her rosebud lips, the coppery red of her hair, and finally to the ivory of her skin.
For a moment she thought that maybe the riddle of the bowl was in her reflection. That it was showing her that happiness could only be found within herself. But maybe was overthinking it, because slowly the view changed and no longer was she staring at herself but at a dark gray pall.
Dalia had said the bowl would help her find her happiness, but what did the gray mean? And perhaps it was just a strange play of shadow upon light, but did there seem to be something hidden within the veil? A figure of some sort, something small, not very large? She cocked her head because she could swear it wasn’t her eyes deceiving her, there was color there. It was red and bright.
Frowning, she studied it as she would a puzzle, so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t hear or sense the presence of another until a loudly clearing throat made her gasp and twist around.
Rumpel wasn’t standing but rather sitting on a chair that hadn’t previously been there. The flames of the hearth danced behind him, and he looked more devilish to her than ever before.
Startled, she scrunched the open ends of her robe together. “What are you doing here?” she snapped, more from fright than anger.
His calm demeanor and half-curled lip was much less menacing than they’d been earlier in the day after she’d returned from her game. He was wearing a loose-fitting black shirt and scuffed jeans, his blond hair hanging long around his face, and Shayera had the terrible urge to do something wicked to him.
He held a tumbler of amber liquid in one hand, his booted legs were splayed out, and he slouched just a little. No longer did he look like a prince, but rather a dangerous, tempting, sinful man.
Her father had sat her down one night and told her about the urgings, the cravings she’d get, because being a siren might make her dangerous to herself and to others. He told her to never trust that inner call, to ignore it because it wasn’t her but the magic within her.
She knew she was leaking pheromones, felt the musky, flowery scent of her desire reaching out to him, and when his amber eyes flashed with fire, she knew she had to get herself under control.
But the desire to crawl across this carpet, stripping one bit of clothing off at a time, and then when she got to him to touch his flesh, to shove his shirt up, to lick her way up the flat part of his stomach to his chest and across his Adam’s apple… It was growing stronger, making her feel weak and faint and humiliated.
Calling forth the image of Briley’s sweet face, she turned her gaze to the side and trembled as her body called her energy back.
“So that’s it, Carrot.” His voice had grown an octave deeper, making her nipples scrape the silk of her gown almost painfully.
Biting down hard on her lower lip, she kept her eyes closed.
“Why you hid yourself in potato sacks, anything to keep the comeliness of your form hidden.” His chuckle was throaty and pulled at her insides. “Look at me, siren.”
Finding her center again, the calm she always felt when she thought of her sweet cousin, she turned toward the devil.
“Kiss me, woman, you know you want to.” He took another swallow of his drink, allowing his lips to linger on the glass for a moment, letting the sheen of brandy glisten for just a second before licking it away.