Page 15 of Rapunzel's Outlaw Orc
The kiss lingers like a brand between us as we sit in the flicker of firelight from the stove, wrapped in something fragile and new and impossible.
And when she eventually leans her head against my shoulder, curling into my side with a sigh that sounds like surrender, I feel peaceful in a way I never have.
Maybe it’s the fire settling, or the way her breathing tugs mine into the same slow rhythm, but the whole tower seems to unclench. The roots stop their restless twitching. I press my palm flat over her hip and make a quiet vow to keep this small, impossible peace intact for as long as I can.
Because I’ve finally found something worth staying for.
Chapter 7
Rapunzel
Brannock has been with me for three days now. That’s seventy-two hours of awkward glances, almost-touches, polite distance, and the shared agony of dwindling food supplies. I’m not sure what’s more painful: the gnawing in my stomach or the ache that blooms every time I catch him watching me like he’s memorizing my face. Because I may be innocent in body, but I’m not oblivious to sexual tension. And there’s enough in my little tower to power Fable Forest.
Three nights ago—the night the roots brought him crashing into my world—he kissed me. And I kissed him back. An orc I’d known for less than a day.
I can still feel it—the press of his mouth, the rumble in his chest that answered something fated in mine. But since then—nothing. Not a brush of fingers. Not a lingering touch. Just restraint so noble it might be illegal.
During the day, he keeps a respectful distance. He makes tea. He fixes things that aren’t broken so he can be useful—tightens the loose screw on my wobbly chair, re-hangs the mirror that has tried to leap to its death three times, turns my ruined sheet intoa very dignified rope. Sometimes, our hands almost meet when he passes me a cup. Sometimes, our knees almost touch when we both reach for the same worn book. Almost. Almost. I’m going to start a shrine to the god of Almost and demand reparations.
At night, he beds down on the rug. He says it’s because the floor is cooler there, or the window can be drafty, or he doesn’t want to crowd me. I suspect it’s because if he gets within kissing range, we may spontaneously combust.
The first night, I lay as stiff as a board on my too-small bed and told myself I would not move. I was dignity. I was willpower. I was… creeping across the floor like a burglar eyeing a stash of gold.
He was already asleep, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other curled near his chest as if guarding something fragile. I hovered beside his shoulder, and then the tiniest sound came out of me. Not a word. A whimper I didn’t authorize.
He didn’t even wake. He just reached, found me by instinct, and pulled me in. I landed against the warm plane of his chest with a surprisedoof.His arm banded around my waist. His breath found the crown of my head. The stove ticked as the last ember settled. The tower… quieted.
I lay there and didn’t move for a long time. My pendant warmed at my throat as my heart thrummed in my chest. His heartbeat was a slow drum under my ear. When he exhaled, it moved the fine hairs at my temples. When I inhaled, his chest rose with me, as if we were already practicing being one being.
The second night, I tried to be subtle about it. The floorboards creaked as I approached him, and I froze. But he didn’t wake then, either. He tugged me close, tucked my hips into thecurve of his, and made a noise that was half contentment, half warning, and entirely ruinous to my composure. I slept. Real sleep, not the gray, heavy kind the tower drags me into. The kind with dreams that didn’t end in bleeding hair and dying sunlight.
By last night, the pattern became a ritual. We exchanged soft goodnights and retreated to our separate stations: me to the bed, him to the rug. I waited. Counted heartbeats. Then tiptoed over on bare feet.
He was on his side, one hand tucked under his cheek. The scars on his knuckles caught the light from the oil lamp. The shirt I mended was twisted up his spine to reveal a strip of ink-dark green. I stood there far too long, thinking about all the things his body and his actions were telling me without words.
I eased down. He didn’t even pretend to be asleep this time. He opened one arm without looking, and I fit myself there like I was made to, as if I’d waited my whole life to learn this simple choreography: shoulder, cheek, palm, peace. He dropped a sleep-slurred kiss into my hair, which landed somewhere between my crown and the place where I keep all my foolish wishes.
But despite our physical closeness at night, he doesn’t touch me when the sun is up. I tell myself I don’t mind. I absolutely mind. But I think I understand. He’s trying to be good. To keep me safe—from himself, from this place. But at night, his sleeping body forgets to be noble and remembers to be mine.
And every day, he?—
“Maybe if I stack all the furniture and climb it like a ladder, I can reach the roof,” Brannock says, pulling me from my thoughts as he drags my tiny table on top of the stove.
Every day, he concocts a new, ridiculous escape plan.
The first day, he made a rope from my only bedsheet.
“That’s a limited-edition cottagecore bedsheet,” I whined as he tore it in half.
“This isn’t a fashion show, Rapunzel. It’s a prison break.”
The “rope” made it out the window.
He did not.
The roots yanked him back through the window like a judgmental mother catching her son sneaking out.
The following day, he stacked my wooden chair on top of the stove.
