Decades have passed since Rumpel last saw his beloved bride Shayera. Single-minded in his determination to bring her back at all costs Rumpel has discovered that in the process of reacquiring her he’s lost all sense of who he even is anymore.

Tired, and world weary he feels the only thing left to do now is to retreat and gather himself. He is not a good man, he knows that. He’s lied, he’s cheated, hell he’s even killed. And he can’t stop thinking that maybe in this new world Shayera deserves to be with someone better than him. Someone kinder. Gentler. Someone the exact opposite of himself. He will never stop loving her, but isn’t that what love means? Sacrificing your own happiness for the sake of theirs? He just wants her happy, that’s all he’s ever wanted, and if that means learning to let her go, then that’s just what he’ll force himself to do.

Shayera has always been aware of ghosts that linger just beyond the fringe of the world she sees. Desperately trying to show her a world she once knew but lost forever. There is a yearning in her, a desire for more. But she never quite understands what that more is until the day she spots the Man in Black. He’s unbelievably handsome, but it’s also clear that he’s a very dangerous man. It’s in the way he moves, how he looks at her, and the words he says. But his husky voice and devastating touch thrills her, makes her come alive. And she knows that she’ll stop at nothing until she makes that darkness hers. No matter the cost…

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche