“Sir, if you can help me to save my brothers, I am willing to pay your price. No matter how high it is. I am a very good seamstress. I can cook and clean for you.”
“I am not in need of a seamstress, or cook, or a cleaner.” He pushed back a tendril of nightshade from his face.
She needed to sweeten the pot.
“I can sing and dance for you, if you’d like.”
He turned on a slow, sly smile. “What makes you think I would be interested in that?”
Once again, undefinable feelings filled her core. “What would interest you then, Sir? Flesh? Blood?”
“First of all, stop calling me Sir. I detest it.”
“Then what should I call you.”
“Erich. My name is Erich. And what do they call you?”
Now that his anger seemed to dissipate a bit, she was lulled by the smooth sound of the timbre from his voice. “They called me Princess. Now there is no one left to call me by any name.”
“Princess?” He tossed back his head and laughed, and when he did, the tendrils of night shade rustled around his body.
She didn’t understand the joke.
“Is my name amusing to you, Erich? Do I amuse you?”
He sobered, and looked at her hard; starting and her feet, and working his way up her barely covered body, taking extra time at her breasts, before finally settling on her face. Although he appeared to appraise her value to him, it did not particularly disturb her.
“Perhaps you really are a Princess.”
She didn’t know how to respond to his statement.
He let out a visible sigh, and motioned to her. “Let’s go, Princess,” he motioned. “You may come into my home, and have something to eat and rest. Beyond that, I promise you nothing.”
Perhaps this was progress, she thought, and followed him through a thicket of trees to a small cottage covered in thorny vines that would ward away unwelcome visitors.
Inside was a single room, with a straw bed in one corner covered in cloth, and a few mismatched pieces of wooden furniture. She watched him pull on a pair of tattered gloves of animal skin, and prepare a plate of fruit and cheese, and fresh milk from a pitcher.
“Eat, Princess.”
She didn’t need to be told twice. After days of surviving on berries and breadcrumbs, she was famished. She pulled a chair up to the table, and ate with relish. After eating her fill, she patted her lips demurely with a rough piece of cloth.
As darkness fell, Erich lit two candles that cast a glow over the humble amenities. The repulsive smell of animal fat reeked in the air. She didn’t complain, she was just happy to be out of the elements and the dangers that might lurk beyond the four walls.
He pointed to the straw bed. “Rest now, Princess.”
She curled up on the bed, and he placed a small blanket over her. As tired as she was, she was more fascinated with the nightshade man.
He simply slid down against the wall in an upright sitting position, and closed his eyes.
“What are you?” she dared to ask.
“Tired, Princess. Tired, is what I am.”
“I mean, are you a man, or were you born this way?”
His eyes remained close. “All right then. If you must know, I was once a man, like your brothers were once men. One day I was in the forest with my hunting party, and I became separated from the others. Soon, I was hopelessly lost when a woman appeared in my sight. Beautiful she was, like you are, Princess.”
Princess now lay on her crooked arm, wide-eyed and riveted to Erich, and the story that was unfolding.
“I said, Good woman, I am hopelessly lost. Could you show me the way to the forest’s edge? She turned on a smile, and said she could, but instead, she took me to her Swan Club and upstairs into her bed. Afterward, I demanded she show me the way back, and she said her price for my return was marriage. I was repulsed by her demand, and told her under no circumstances would I take her as my wife. She grew deeply scarlet in color, and blew a cloud of powdery purple charmed deadly nightshade dust from a secret compartment within an onyx rose ring she wore on her first finger. When the powder filled my lungs, I collapsed at once.
When I woke, I was in the forest, transformed into the wretched being I now am. And she was long gone. She made sure she took away not only the quality of my life, but the ability for any woman to ever love, or touch me again.”
He paused, and pressed his lips together. Eyes still closed.
Was he finished with his tale? Princess wanted to know everything.
“Was this the same evil witch my father married? The woman who turned my brothers into swan creatures and enslaved them? The one called Valentina?”
“Yes, Princess,” he replied simply.
So when Valentina could not ensnare Erich in her marriage trap, she instead succeeded with her father.
“I must find a way to save my brothers…to save you, Erich,” she said most sincerely.
A thin smile appeared on his purple stained lips. “I cannot be saved, Princess. Perhaps your brothers still can. We shall sleep on it now, and discuss it in the morning. Now sleep.”
There was one more question Princess needed to know. “Why is it you’re wearing gloves, Erich?”
His eyes opened. “My dear Princess, a part of my affliction is I am toxic. If I even caress your beautiful face, as I wish to do, my poisonous touch will kill you.”
Chapter Two
Princess rose early from a dreamless sleep. She did not even have a comb to smooth out her hair. She busied herself with sweeping out the small cottage, and prepared a breakfast of fruit and herbal tea, before Erich ever woke.
What would happen today? Could Erich possibly have the cure for what ailed her brothers?
