Chapter 8 Rapunzel
Rapunzel
I pace, arms wrapped tight around myself as I piece everything together.
A thousand little memories cascade through me.
Every time I felt tired for no reason. Every day I sat by the window, listless and aching.
Every time Gothel told me it was normal, that magic was supposed to feel like that.
All the questions she never answered and the distractions she put in front of me.
“I swallowed every one of her lies,” I whisper.
“I should’ve asked more questions. I knew I was tethered, but—” I reach out with a trembling hand and touch the wall.
“This is my prison. My hair is the anchor. The roots are the shackles. And my loneliness is the lock. This whole tower… It’s not a building. It’s a body. Mine.”
Dear gods, who am I? What am I?
Brannock steps toward me. “You didn’t know.”
“I should have,” I say fiercely. “I should’ve questioned it. I felt the pull. Saw the signs. But I believed her… believed when she said she was protecting me. Keeping me safe. That she chose me. That I was loved.” I start pacing again. “I have to leave. I have to cut my hair. Burn it. Anything.”
Brannock reaches for me as I pass. His arms come around me, strong and warm, and I collapse against his chest, tears pouring down my face.
“We’ll find a way out, Rapunzel,” he promises, tilting my face up and brushing away my tears with his enormous thumbs. “Together.”
“Will we?” I ask, desperately wanting to believe him, but how can I? My body is a temple, imprisoning me. And the person who swore she was protecting me likely whispered my pain into existence.
“On my life, I swear it,” he vows, and I almost believe him. “When will Gothel come?”
“Three more days.”
He nods. “We need to be prepared. She won’t be expecting me. We need a plan,” he says, moving away, all steely resolve now. “If she climbs in, I want you behind me. If she stays below, we control the window.”
“Control the window,” I echo dryly, gesturing at the living wall of hair that does whatever it wants. “By all means.”
“First, we clear the floor.” He starts shifting furniture: table to the wall, chair under the mirror, my basket tucked behind the stove.
He moves like a general going into battle but thinks like a strategist, making paths, testing angles, checking for places where roots could burst through.
I trail after him with a broom, mostly for moral support.
“Signal words,” he says. “If I say down, you drop. If I say hide, you get behind the stove. If I say retreat—”
“—we surrender and beg for mercy?”
His mouth quirks. “You retreat to the bed wall.”
We take an inventory: an obsidian blade, a spear with a patched linen wrap, a dented pot-lid shield, a kettle, three cups, a length of ruined sheet masquerading as rope, and a bit of chamomile soap because... why not?
We do drills. He calls, I move. My dress swishes, and the roots twitch like gossiping snakes. When I try to breathe through the panic, he puts a broad palm on my back—steady weight, no pressure—and counts me through it until my lungs remember how.
“Again,” he says gently.
I do it.
When we pause for tea, the kettle whistles like it’s trying to warn us off this entire endeavor. I pour with trembling hands. Brannock takes his cup and drinks like it’s medicine. I wrap mine in both palms and pretend the heat is courage.
“She’ll know,” I say, staring into the steam. “She always knows when I’ve broken a rule.”
He studies me. “How?”
“I don’t—” I stop. The pendant hums, soft as a cat’s purr, and I rub the amethyst absently. “I don’t know.”
His emerald gaze holds mine. “If she threatens you, I won't wait. I’ll move first.”
“And if she threatens you?” I demand.
He grins around his tusks. “Killer orc, remember?”
Ugh, why does he have to be so orc-ishly handsome?
By late afternoon, the tower looks almost…
intentional. We’ve moved anything flammable away from the worst fissures, filled a bucket with water, set another with sand, and tucked the obsidian spearhead under the table leg nearest the window.
Brannock knots the sheet-rope and tests it with his weight, even though we both know the tower won’t let us use it.
He tests it anyway. That’s the kind of orc he is.
When he’s satisfied it won’t snap, he turns to me. “One more thing.”
“Only one?” I ask, exhausted and a little giddy.
His eyes soften. “Eat.”
I wrinkle my nose. “We don’t have much food left.”
He’s already dividing a hunk of bread and grabbing a handful of dried fruit. “You need strength. I need you. My metabolism allows me to survive longer without food, but you’re small. Fragile.”
My snort echoes off the tower walls.
He frowns. “What did I say?”
“That I’m fragile. That’s hilarious.”
“Compared to me, you are.”
“That’s not saying much. You’re practically a walking boulder with feelings. The last time Dame Gothel visited, she told me to lay off the cake because my hips were taking over the room. Doesn’t matter how much or little I eat, this is how I stay,” I say, indicating my generous curves.
His heated gaze wanders over me in my outdated, ill-fitting dress. “Good. You’re perfect the way you are.”
That brings heat to my cheeks and other, secret areas.
We eat on the floor, backs to the stove, knees touching. Outside, the forest shifts in the windless dusk, leaves whispering secrets I can almost hear.
Brannock leans his head back against the stone and closes his eyes. For a moment, he looks young. For a moment, I remember we’re just tired creatures trying to make new rules inside an old spell.
“Tonight,” he says, rising, “you stay in your bed. I’ll take the rug.”
“You’ll take the rug with me on it,” I counter.
He opens his mouth to protest. I lift an eyebrow. He relents with a huff that sounds like a fond laugh and spreads the blanket.
We lie down facing the window. His arm finds me the way it always does—like water knowing the shape of its riverbed.
“Three days,” he murmurs into my hair. “We’re ready.”
I turn in his arms to face him. My fingers move without permission, seeking comfort, brushing along his jaw, then trailing to his lips. I want to taste them. Gods, I want that more than food or freedom right now.
“No one has ever touched me the way you do,” he rasps.
“Then they were fools,” I whisper, pressing my lips to his throat, emboldened by his words.
He shudders, and his reaction ignites something inside me. My mouth trails up his neck, tongue tasting his skin.
He sucks in a harsh breath. “Rapunzel—”
I wind my hands into his dark hair. “Kiss me, Brannock. Please.”
Brannock’s tusks brush my cheek. Not as a warning or a threat, but something far more dangerous. Passion. Need. His breath is ragged against my skin, his massive chest rising and falling like he’s holding back a storm.
“I shouldn’t,” he growls, but there’s no retreat in his voice. “You’re too soft. Too breakable. I’m not gentle.”
“Is that why you haven’t kissed me since the other night? I’m tougher than I look, Bran. And I’m not afraid of you,” I whisper, trembling with too many emotions to contain.
His jaw tightens under my touch, tusks gleaming in the moonlight, a reminder of everything he is—beast, warrior, outsider.
He looks like he belongs to the wild. Dangerous.
Devastating. And somehow still gentle. And his eyes…
those burning emerald eyes are locked on my lips like they’ll grant him absolution.
“Say my name again,” he rasps, his voice barely more than a snarl. One hand slides to the small of my back, anchoring me to his hard body while the other cups my cheek.
“Kiss me, Bran,” I repeat, firmer now. “Make me yours. I want to know what it feels like when you lose control.”
His mouth crushes mine with such ferocity that it steals the air from my lungs. He doesn’t kiss like a man. He kisses like a ravenous beast, angling his head so his tusks don’t bruise me. His lips are hot and silken and commanding, and his tongue—
Gods.
His tongue sweeps deep, devouring my gasp. He kisses me as if he’s been holding back for days. His growl vibrates through my entire body, the sound electrifying. Intoxicating.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” he breathes against my lips. “But nothing prepared me for you. For your taste. Your softness.”
I thread my fingers into his coarse hair, dragging him back down, because once isn’t enough.
It will never be enough. Our mouths move in frantic, messy sync.
I clutch at his shirt, tasting him, needing him, the world shrinking until nothing matters but this—his lips, his breath, and the heat coiled tight between us.
And I know with a fierce, impossible certainty that I’ve just been marked. Not with teeth or claws, but with a kiss that has carved its way into my soul.