The Dark Forest: A Collection Of Erotic Fairytales(137)

Keep him talking.

“Why would I be empty?”

“Because of him. I don’t know how you exist at all. You shouldn’t exist.” He shook his head slowly and shuffled backwards until his shoulders met the wall.

“I don’t understand.” Rebecca watched as his eyes closed through the holes in the mask, and she carefully inched forward.

“Of course you don’t, princess. Rapunzel. You’re so blind. So blonde. All that hair.” The words were slurring more, and she reached for the bottle just in front of his feet, her hands closing around the neck of it, still warm from his touch.

“It’s just hair,” she mumbled softly, trying not to alert him to her movements as she lifted the bottle silently from the floor and moved to her knees.

“Golden hair. Like sunlight. I saw it on the television too, but it’s so much softer than I thought it would—” His hand caught her wrist as she swung the bottle hard towards his head, and pain shot up her arm as he twisted his grip sharply. A yelp escaped her as the bottle dropped, undamaged to the mattress.

Shit.

Tawny brown eyes stared out from the mask, somehow angry even through the watery haze of the alcohol. “Rapunzel,” he growled, and she channeled Judith, shouting as she reared back and kicked his arm hard, breaking his grip on her wrist.

As soon as she was free, she threw herself backwards, almost tripping over her own feet, but she recovered and rushed for the door. Her hand closed around the handle and ripped it open in a single breath. Brighter light, more concrete, but she didn’t care. She was out of that damn room, out of the web.

Rebecca chose a direction and ran.

The hall ended in metal doors and she was maybe fifteen feet away when a sharp jerk at her hair almost yanked her completely off her feet. Somehow she turned the fall into a simple stumble, smacking into the wall, but he didn’t wait as he secured his grip in her hair more fully. “That was not smart, princess.”

Forcing her to bend forward, he tried to pull her back with him, but she dug her heels into the concrete floor and threw her weight to the side. The ripping sting at her scalp wasn’t enough to stop her, and he stumbled with her. His balance imperfect, he wavered on his feet, and they struggled for control. She hit his chest, clawed at his bare hand in her hair, but he was impossibly strong. Eventually he managed to knock her leg out from under her and she landed hard on her knees. With uneven steps, he half-dragged her back towards the room, tears stinging her eyes as the fierce ache ran down her neck, but still she raged. “Let me go. Let me the fuck up! I won’t be a fucking pawn for you anymore!”

Collapsing to the floor just before the heavy door to her prison, she forced him to stop short. He turned on her with a guttural, animalistic growl. “Get up.”

“No!” she shouted. Borrowing Judith’s strength to fight against her own Holofernes. This evil, black masked, bastard. Stubbornly she fixed herself to the floor, her legs out to her side so that if he wanted to move her, he would have to do it bodily. She would not walk, or crawl, back into her own prison.

“Do you have any idea what I can do to you?” he threatened, but she laughed bitterly.

“Are you fucking kidding?! I’m covered in bruises from you! Welts! I ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU DO!” Turning, she tried to kick at his leg, but he barely grunted and she screamed in frustration as she reached back to dig her nails into his bare hands. Air hissed between his teeth as she tore his skin, but it was pure victory when he released her and she scrambled backwards. Breathing heavily, she took in his huge, broad form, knowing that another dash for the doors was useless. “What the fuck do you want from me? Why won’t you just tell me?”

“Haven’t I made it clear?” He tilted that flat, expressionless mask as he looked down at her. “I want to use you to destroy him.”

“I won’t let you. I’m done.”

“You are so blind, Rapunzel.”

“Stop calling me that!” The scream was a combination of all of her rage, her shame, her pain, but he used that moment to lunge forward and grab her arm, hauling her forcibly back into the room. Instead of throwing her to the floor, he turned and lifted her, pinning her to the wall, his body flush to hers.

Forcing a knee between her thighs, he spread her as she tried to push his chest back. “What bothers you so much, Rapunzel? That I call you that, or that Daddy wanted to keep you his little princess forever?”

“Fuck off!”

In an instant he cupped her ass and lifted her from the floor, his hips splitting her legs until she had no choice but to wrap them around his waist. The tingling hum at the base of her spine ushered a surge of shame through her system. She was not enjoying this, didn’t want this, she was not—

“Tell me… if I touch you right now, will you be wet?” His voice was a low purr that amplified the sparkling heat inside her and she hated it, hated him, and hated most of all that it was true.

“Let go of me.”

“You’re wet. I know it. You always are for me.” The man leaned forward, brushing the mask across her shoulder as he nuzzled her neck. He took a deep breath against her skin, a groan escaping him as he pressed his hips forward, the growing hardness unmistakable. “You need it as much as I do, princess.”

For a moment her hands were still braced against his chest, trying uselessly to push him away, to ignore his words, but then a thought struck like lightning. Before the fear could stop her, she reached up and ripped the mask over his head in a single, fluid motion. Tawny brown eyes immediately went wide beneath sculpted dark brows. He had the features of an angel, too beautiful to be so evil. A seraph with high cheekbones, the faintest shadow of a beard covering his cheeks sloping towards lips that parted in shock. The mask hung at her side, gripped white-knuckle tight in shaking fingers, as his beautiful face contorted with rage.