Darelle

15

Rumpel opened his eyes to the early light that slimmed his dark heavy curtains and tried to sit up. He hissed and moaned at the sharp pain that spread through his back.

He almost swore for not paying it much attention the previous night when the drunkard of a princess to the bookshelf—had nearly been crushed to bits when she was meddling in his business.

The fae saved her in a split second and was too late in escaping and reaching for Asmo's. He sacrificed himself but the heavy frame knocked the daylight out of his upper body.

He carefully pushed himself until he inched closer to the edge of the bed and got off the bed with a mental reminder to make a potion or ointment of a strong potency to heal his shoulder.

He rotated his shoulder blade and massaged his back with gentle hits from using his fist, and he made his way into the living room, where he had dropped the princess . . . only to find her spot empty.

His acute hearing picked up, soft foot taps halfway through the room and pulled him to the side—to see her reading one of his books with great concentration he didn't imagine she possessed.

"You study magic." she stated without sparing him a glance for touching his personal property.

That alone ticked him off and he squeezed his hand shut as the urge to slam her against the wall and put his book back in its rightful place—seized him.

The princess lifted her eyes to him, and he realized she looked less of a mess than she had the previous night when she was intoxicated. Maybe she didn't remember how he grabbed her in the night or how he held her hand until she slept.

Rumpel cut the distance between them, calmly, sizing her up. "I don't study magic." he said, eyeing the material in her hand. It was Manuel Complet de Medicine Légal a book he was sure she couldn't understand, but why the words? he supposed she had touched more than she allowed him to see.

"I make potion . . . Ointment. Traditional Medicine."

He watched her lips curl up in amusement as she shut the book in her hands. "So, you are not only a linguistics but a doctor?" he listened enough to pick the amazement in her voice.

"Many medical journals are written in French, mademoiselle." he said as he took three steps forward than her friend would appreciate and fished out the material from her hand.

His hands moved behind as she caught her breath, he leaned forward as he enjoyed playing with her. He placed it back on the shelf, exactly where it belonged and removed himself from near her body. He was so close that he felt her body heat pool to him and his nose twitched at her scent.

Stepping back, he realized he couldn't overwork himself and she has to leave before he lost himself. "You should take your leave, princess." he said, before he turned to walk away and put a safe space between them.

"Teach me." she said.

And he stopped in his tracks. Paused to see if he heard wrong and was mistaken but he heard nothing but her heavy breath.

"What?" he turned and faced her, asking the vague meaning of her words. Teach me? "If you want me to add Latin or Greek to the classes we share? I can arrange that with your uncle."

The princess shook her head, silencing him as she took a deep breath and lowered her head. Rather than give him that smoggy superior look like she often did.

"Teach me . . . how to make potion. " she said. "And I will try to learn French better." she muttered under her breath.

A scoff of disbelief left him with a sarcastic smile. "You can barely keep up with french and you want to learn potions, Princess."