(Author's Note: I know Halloween is long over and this story was meant to be all about celebrating the spookiness of Halloween, but I hope you can still enjoy it despite the delay! I suck at updating quickly, I know. So thank you for sticking with me! ( ̄◇ ̄)ノ )

Chapter 2 : The Lost Princess

Rapunzel had been with men before. But none of them had been like Flynn Rider.

Under the charm of her unearthly beauty, all those men who had fallen victim to Rapunzel's spell had wanted nothing but to consume her. To those lust blinded eyes, the golden haired maiden was nothing more than an object of indulgence. They had devoured every inch of her to the point of exhausting themselves, which had allowed Rapunzel to savored their soul in their intoxicated sleep in return.

But Flynn was different.

For the first time ever, Rapunzel felt as if she was the one who was under a spell when their skin touched. She turned boneless when the brusque brunet claimed her lips with such tenderness, and it did not take long for her to be gasping underneath his reassuring weight—begging for more. Fynn's intrusion was caringly gentle despite the plenty provocations she was providing him with her promiscuous vocalizations and clawing to his muscular back, the unhurried insertion only serving to fuel the fire of Rapunzel's desires. Flynn refused to submit to the enchantress' urges, however, exhibiting the temperance of a wise old perfume maker who extracted the scent of the roses delicately instead of just by crushing their petals heartlessly.

And when they finally grew from the torturously languid dance into something more frantic, feverish with primal needs and instincts, Flynn would slowed his pace yet again, while pressing one meltingly warm kiss after another on Rapunzel's sweat slicked throat, shoulder, and between her supple breasts. None, not even her obsession of eternal beauty, mattered to Rapunzel that time; she cared only about the pair of strong tanned arms lovingly cradling her body and the hot lips upon her skin, about how she wanted Flynn Rider to remain inside of her forever. She was beyond the state of comprehending anything but carnal pleasures when her man finally neared his peak, her blonde head tossed back and her rolled-back eyes only half open.

Almost animalistic, masculine grunts coalesced with feminine cries and moans as their climax impacted them. The lewd creaking of the bed stopped, replaced by harsh panting breaths from both the imprisoned damsel and the handsome traveler.

Panic gripped Rapunzel's hazy mind as she began to slip into unconsciousness after her high faded; if she planned to eliminate Flynn Rider, this would be the perfect time as he was content and tired and unsuspecting.

In the end she reached out to him, but instead of tangling her deadly golden hair around him with the intention to kill she curled within the comfort of his arms and listened to his steady heartbeat. Rapunzel allowed the music of Flynn's life lulled her to sleep, and for once she did not dream of the dying face of Mother Gothel which had been haunting her since the first night after she had killed her.

The first thing that Rapunzel saw when she opened her eyes was Flynn's profile outlined by the first light of dawn.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, one of his legs stretching to the floor. His head was bent and his somber eyes were fixated on an object in his hands, something that Rapunzel could not glimpse from where she was rested atop her pillows. All this solemnity. . . Flynn did not look like himself without his bravado and cheeky smile. It was bizarre, to be thinking these thoughts as if she had known the attractive stranger all her life. But she was, and she did not even have the time to regret the lost opportunity to renew her beauty.

"Flynn?"

The man jumped at Rapunzel's voice and the clinking sound of something light and metallic hitting the floor followed. Flynn hurriedly leaped to retrieve whatever it was he had dropped, before turning to meet Rapunzel's questioning gaze. Anxious chestnut irises meeting lushly grassy ones, Flynn exhaled a long breath before answering.

"Good morning, Blondie. I'm sorry, did I wake you ?" He sat back on the bed, and Rapunzel could finally see that Flynn was holding something shiny and sparkling—a piece jewelry? Rapunzel could not be certain. She had not seen anything like it. It was a fragile-looking circular band made out of gold, decorated with massive diamonds reflecting brilliant patterns upon Flynn's skin. "I was only thinking about….something. I have something that I have to tell you."

Rapunzel slowly sat up, without bothering to cover her nakedness. Her companion visibly swallowed, but it seemed like he was determined to carry his mission through. Rapunzel merely monitored him with her deceptively huge and docile green eyes.

"You see this tiara?" he began after clearing his throat. "This tiara is not mine. I stole it. That was why I needed a place to hide yesterday; people were hunting me because I stole their precious treasure.

"I am a thief. I've been one for a long time and the royal guards will give you a huge sum of money if you bring me to them, dead or alive…. Maybe they'll give bigger reward if I'm dead, I don't know. They don't like me that much."

And without Rapunzel having to ask him Flynn began to spill everything: his history as an orphan who had admired this book character Flynnigan Rider, his aspiration to have a life of a swashbuckling hero, and how he had tarnished the name he had adopted as his own by being what he was in his quest for adventure and glory.

He told her that his true given name was Eugene Fitzherbert—and how good it felt to finally have someone who knew of his real existence after all his time of crime and pretentious debauchery.

A look of dismay had held Flynn's expression through the entire retelling of his back story, yet the handsome lad ended it with a sheepish smile.

"It's too early for this kind of boring tale, huh?" he inquired, translating Rapunzel's silence as confusion. "My bad. I only thought that after what we had last night…." He lightly rolled his shoulders in a shrug.

"I just wanted you to know."

Rapunzel had never spoken to any of the male sacrifices she had lured into her death trap. They had exchanged a few words, but none of them had meant anything. She tilted her pretty head at a slight angle, curious. Was it possible to see this man before her as something more than a meal for her greed? She looked down at the brilliant rivers her hair formed across the white sheets; she, too, had a tale hidden from anyone's knowledge. Rapunzel wondered what kind of face the daredevil Flynn Rider, no, Eugene Fitzherbert would make if he had known that the person he had just confessed his sins to was an even greater sinner than he was.

Before the Flynn in the green eyed-maiden's imagination could have made any facial expression displaying shock and betrayal, the real one had moved to reach for her idle hand, clasping her tiny fingers in his roughened ones.

Cautiousness laced his gestures, as if he was being careful with what he was about to say. "As important as telling you who I really am feels to me, Rapunzel, I have one other thing that I think must mention to you."

Seriousness deepened his voice and his concerned gaze fell to the piece of gold in the possession of his other hand before flicking back to Rapunzel. "I stole this tiara from the King's palace, and I saw something there."

When the question of what he had seen could possibly be came, Flynn's eyes widened by a fraction and he whispered, "I saw a painting. Of the royal family. Of the king and queen of this land and the crown princess, the daughter who was taken away from the King and the Queen nineteen years ago."

Rapunzel could not see where Flynn was heading with this story. But she could feel the undeniable rush in her blood. The sort of anticipation she only experienced when 'hunting'.

Outside Rapunzel's tower the sky had turned a brighter blue, perky wisps of cottony clouds rolling freely across the horizon. The coverlet discreetly rustled as Flynn disengaged his hand from Rapunzel's and rose to gaze out of the nearest window, the ends of his messy brown locks tinged with gold from the play of light.

Eugene Fitzherbert hesitated, scrubbed his chin in a thoughtful manner, before whirling to face Rapunzel with a subtly knitted brow.

"I think it is you, Blondie."

Rapunzel remained still when the man traced his steps back to the bed and placed the tiara on her head. The royal crown glowed like a halo of light and so did Flynn's face.

"I think you might be the lost princess."