Page 5 of Rapunzel's Outlaw Orc
Golden hair that glows like starlight. Skin pale and smooth. Full lips. Curves that make my mouth go dry. Soft, round, and perfect.
Not a fragile damsel. Not to me.
My throat tightens. I take a step closer, heart pounding. She sings as if she’s made peace with the solitude. As if she belongs here. Her voice soothes something raw inside me.
My body responds before I can stop it. Heat pools low in my belly. My cock throbs. I shift, muttering a curse. Gods, it’s been so long since I felt anything like this. Now isn’t the time to take care of it.
I should look away. I should move on. But I don’t.
I’m about to step closer when the shadows move.
Something slithers around my ankles—a vine. Before I can react, I’m yanked off my feet with a grunt, the air knocked clean from my lungs as I hit the ground. My head cracks against the hard earth, and my vision swims. I scramble for purchase, but whatever has me is dragging me across the dirt.
Toward the tower.
Maybe this forestishungry.
And it’s not done with me yet.
Chapter 3
Rapunzel
It’s usually quiet in the tower at night. Not peaceful-quiet, like in the books I read with cozy libraries or sleepy cottages. No, this quiet hums with something else—something unnatural. During the day, the forest below hums with life—birds darting between trees, squirrels chittering, strange little creatures singing their nonsense songs. Sometimes, the braver animals venture close to the tower’s base, noses twitching, eyes bright with curiosity. But never too close. It’s as if an invisible boundary holds them back, like theyknowsomething about this place—something dark and old and not meant to be touched.
At night, even they disappear. The hush falls heavy, and the silence presses against my ears, too loud to ignore.
So I sing to fill the void. Melodies I make up as I go. Songs I’ve never learned yet seem to recall from memories I know don’t belong to me. Anything to remind myself that I still exist and there is a world beyond this tower. Singing fills me with… contentment. And the roots tangled in my hair seem to like it too. They stretch and sigh like a cat basking in a patch ofsunshine. They seem less like chains keeping me captive and more like friends in those moments.
When I hear athumpagainst the outside wall of the tower, I tell myself it’s the wind. Or my overactive imagination. But thethumpis followed by agrunt.A very real, very deep grunt. My heart lurches.
I lean out the window and peer into the darkness, oil lamp in hand. The light doesn’t reach far, but it’s enough to illuminate a figure dangling by a leg halfway up the tower. It’s not Dame Gothel. Too tall. Too wide.
A pair of muscular legs sway in the moonlight, one boot caught in a thick snarl ofrootsclimbing the tower’s side. A massive figure is being dragged skyward, unconscious and slack-limbed.
This is new and highly unusual.
A rush of panic hits me.
“A visitor!” I whisper-shriek, spinning away from the window. “A real, actual—oh, gods, I’m in my nightgown!”
I dash to the wall, fumbling out of the sheer, floaty thing and into one of the two dresses I own that don’t have weird mildew stains. My hair, unfortunately, remains its usual chaotic mess. I don’t have time to fight with it, not when the forest is actively yeeting a man up the side of my tower.
When did it start doing that?
I rush back to the window with the lamp, holding it higher to see my guest more clearly. As the light spills over him, I gasp.
He’s huge. And green.
His face, slack in sleep, is rugged and scarred, tusks curling from his mouth. He looks fierce. Dangerous.
“An orc?” I ask aloud.
His eyelids flutter. Then snap open. Wild, confused, and glowing faintly in the dark. He comes alive with a startled roar, flailing as he realizes he’s suspended in midair.
“What thefuckis happening?” he roars.
“I—um—hi?” I offer, clutching the lamp.
