Forbidden (A New Adult Paranormal Romance) (8 page)

“Is this common among your natives?” Aein asked. “Do you kill each other?”

“It’s fairly common. Of course,” she added hurriedly, lest he think they were all a bunch of murderers and cutthroats, “there are laws against this, but some people do it anyway. And it’s fairly legal to do it during wars.”

The corpse’s sockets stared back at her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, thinking of Wolfsbane.

Aein did not seem convinced. His narrowed eyes took in the corpse, seeming to memorize every detail: the buzzing flies, the dried blood on the nailed ankles, the matted beard.

“Is there much cruelty among your people?”

“Fairly,” she said, thinking of her stepmother. She turned to face the stream, its silvery ribbon of water a joyous sight in contrast. The wind lifted her wet tresses. A roiling, churning sensation started in her tummy.

“Then is it fair to say that you are a cruel race?” he persisted. “That you would do evil unto each other?” He seemed to be pressing for a certain answer, for her to say yes. Once again, she felt an undercurrent of something sinister.

“Why are you here, Aein?” she demanded, turning to him. “Why are you visiting us? Have your Eastern generals sent you to spy on us?”

“No,” he began, “I – ”

All her penned up anger and frustration came bubbling to the surface. Wolfsbane, Tom Cherry, her fugitive status, everything.

“No, tell me!” Her hand clasped her knife. “Are you a spy, come to scout us so that you can wage war upon us?”

If he so much as said
yes
, she swore she’d spring on him.

“I am not a spy,” he declared. “That I willingly swear upon the leaves of my ancestors.”

“Liar. You’re a spy,” Snow White insisted, her anger rolling over. She was semi-aware that calling a spy a spy to his face wasn’t exactly the smartest thing to do, but she couldn’t rein her emotions in.

“Don’t make me kill you, native.” His steady eyes challenged hers. In the filtered light of the bank, he was magnificent with silvery water beads dotting his pale flesh – a glistening Poseidon. The side of his mouth twitched.

“Oh, so we're back to killing,” she said hotly. “Then you’re no better than the people who did this!” She jabbed her thumb at the corpse.

He seemed taken aback. Before he could say anything further, she strode off, her heart thumping wildly. If he followed her and touched her in any way, she promised herself that she would lash out with the knife.
Let’s see how that pretty face looks scarred.

More buzzing came from behind the trees. She swallowed. Around a cluster of trees, a dead horse lay on its side. An arrow shaft protruded from its neck and a cloud of flies rose. Several open saddlebags were strewn around the horse, their contents half-spilled on the ground. Whoever killed the man had possibly rifled through these and taken anything of worth, leaving the rest to foragers.

Snow White spied hard bread and cheese. The ache in her belly returned in burning force despite her queasiness. Her hunger for any food other than apples won over, and she stuffed the cheese greedily into her mouth despite the putrid smell that wafted from the horse. By the time Aein quietly approached her, she had already finished a whole wedge.

Aein emptied another saddlebag. Crumpled clothes fell out. “We will be approaching a village soon, not?” he said calmly. By outward appearances, he had gotten over her little tirade.

“Ummmph,” Snow White replied, her mouth full.

“Then perhaps I will wear your loincloth.” He pronounced it with difficulty. “To blend in with the natives.”

This seemed to be conciliatory, though she couldn’t care less what he did anymore.

“Whaddever.” She was ashamed of her hunger. Did death affect her so little now that she could feast alongside the ravens and buzzards? If the poor man is dead, she consoled herself, then he would not need all this food, so what better posthumous deed than to bring two travelers back from the brink of starvation?

By the time Aein was fully clothed in the dead man’s spare garb, the combination of guilt, stench and food made her retch all the contents of her stomach out.

“You should not eat so much,” Aein said unkindly.

“You shouldn’t wear your pants backside front.”

To ditch him or not to ditch him? If she followed the stream, she would have more water than she could drink. But with the killers still present in the woods, it would be better to have company. At least at night, one of them could mount a lookout.

Miserably, she realized she was still stuck with Aein. The next village couldn’t come soon enough.

#

They followed the stream northward, proceeding with more caution. The next day, at twilight, they glimpsed a distant fire crackling between the trees. Muffled voices trailed from its direction. Reminded of the corpse and her nightmares, Snow White hung cautiously back.

“Perhaps we are approaching a village,” Aein said.

Her heart leaped. Was it too much to hope?

“We should investigate them first,” she warned.

“But why? I wish to meet and mingle with them.”

“Just saying we should be careful, that’s all.”

As they quietly approached, the voices became louder. Laughter interspersed with the snapping of twigs in the flames. The aroma of roasting meat rose, so sweet that it made her mouth water. After days of apples and stale bread, it was if a banquet table groaning with wild boar and lamb shanks had dropped at her feet.

Several men were seated around the fire, warming their hands. A huge deer hung on a spit which was being turned by a man. As the carcass rotated, fat fell from its flesh into the yellow spitting flames.

The men’s features were coarse and weathered, a lifetime of living under the sun. Beards flecked with grey covered their faces. One wore his hair in a blond braid woven with many small bones. Another had only half a nose – a cauliflower-like growth blossomed from the other half. A metal hat with two bull horns perched on the head of yet another. The men all wore leather tunics and knives that gleamed from their sides. Bone Braid polished a sword with great care. Many glittering trinkets were strewn across the forest floor – gold coins, rubies, necklaces that flashed like stars. Several handsome horses were tethered to stakes. One of them neighed softly in her direction.

Snow White shrank back.

“I think they’re robbers,” she whispered to Aein. Trembling, she reached for her hunting knife. “I think they might be the men who nailed the corpse to the tree.”

“Do you know how to use that?” Aein said.

“Only for slicing apples. Do you know how to use it?”

Aein shook his head.

Then we’re doomed. Tugging softly at Aein’s arm, Snow White began to edge away from the clearing, her shoes treading upon the soft soil in as noiseless a manner as she had been taught to creep up and observe new insects.

“But I wish to meet with them,” he hissed.

“They will kill you!”

She felt a presence behind her – a sour, unwashed smell – and before she could turn, someone seized her around the chest and lifted her. Struggling with her arms pinned against her sides, she held on to the hunting knife and kicked backwards with all her might.

“Aein, run!” she shrieked. But Bone Braid and Cauliflower Nose appeared behind him. Bone Braid hooked a meaty arm around Aein’s neck and held a knife to his chin.

“Well, well,” he said, “what do we have here?”

“Two tender succulent children, it would seem,” said the man with the metal hat. As Bone Braid held Aein in a vice grip, Metal Hat lifted Aein’s chin to inspect his face. He licked his lips. “I wager he’d be tasty in the cook pot, though I would have preferred a little more meat on him.”

“No!” Snow White screamed as the man behind her twisted her arm and made her drop the knife.

“This one’s a feisty one,” said her abductor, who had a milky right eye. It leaked a trickle of yellow, foul-smelling fluid down the side of his nose.

“Not much meat on her.” Metal Hat sniffed.

“Mother Baron would find use for them, no doubt,” Milky Eye said.

“Mother Baron and her stupid uses.” Bone Braid spat. “We’ll find better uses for them.”

They dragged Snow White and Aein to the fire, and forced them down on their knees while secured their wrists behind them with rope. The bonds were very tight. Numbness spread from the tips of Snow White’s fingers. When she tried to flex her thumb, she could hardly feel anything.

Bone Braid prodded Aein’s shoulder with his scuffed shoe. “I’m willing to wager he was having his way with the girl when we surprised them.”

“And I am willing to wager that you murdered that poor native back there and nailed his feet to the tree.” Aein lifted his head in defiance.

Keep your head down and be quiet, Snow White wanted to tell him.

“Ah.” Bone Braid laid the tip of his knife against Aein’s cheek, just below his eye. “Insolent as well. What would you say if I take out your eye, boy? Would it then drip of milk like Culuth’s here?”

For one terrible moment, Snow White saw the knife inch upwards. It dug into Aein’s eye, taking out the orb the way one would dig out a snail from its shell. She gasped and blinked. The knife was at Aein’s cheek once again and his eye was whole. She blinked several times, not trusting her vision.

Unflinching, Aein smoldered at his tormentor. “He has an eye infection,” he said. “If he doesn’t get it looked at by a real doctor, he will lose it.”

“Oh, fancy words now. What do you know about eyes then?” Bone Braid moved the blade’s tip closer to Aein’s eye so that it was now a whisker below his lashes. Snow White had a terrible premonition that what she imagined would come true.

“No!” she cried.

“Leave him, Gorm,” Cauliflower Nose said. “Pretty face like that might fetch a bushel of gold if Mother Baron doesn’t want him for other things.”

The men chortled as Gorm removed the knife. He planted his foot in the middle of Aein’s chest and forced him roughly down. Aein’s head and back slammed on the ground painfully. Ants scattered.

“To be honest,” Gorm said, “I’m getting tired of Mother Baron and her grand design.” He pronounced the words as though it offended his tongue to have them roll off. “It’s as though we’re the outcasts and the dregs.”

The rest of the men stared at him as though he had just blasphemed.

“You don't mean that, Gorm,” Cauliflower Nose said uneasily. “Such talk will raise the ire of folks back in the village.”

“We’re not in the village.”

“But she’s our mother,” Milky Eye shot back.

“An apple must stray far from the tree to take root and grow.” Gorm turned to Snow White. “Ah, now that I can see you properly, my beauty, you are a prize indeed. Imagine the bids she would fetch when she stands on the auction stage like a heifer, naked, in chains and trembling with fear.”

Snow White could well picture the jeers of the crowd and the thrown pulpy fruit. Her pulse fluttered as Gorm clasped his calloused hand around her neck. This is when it would happen, she thought. My death.

“My word.” Gorm drew a sharp breath. “She is more exquisite that I imagined. See how the flames dance in the whiteness of her cheeks. Blood!” He startled Snow White by running a finger across her lips. “Ah, it is not blood but the very redness of her mouth itself.”

Terror began to mount within Snow White.

“Indeed,” Metal Hat said, peering into Snow White’s face. He swatted away a dragonfly that had come too close. “She is as beautiful as you say. More beautiful perhaps than the famed Queen Isobel. What’s to wager she’s still a maiden?”

Gorm grinned, showing rotten teeth. “Only one way to find out.”

He tore the front of Snow White’s tunic, baring her flesh. She screamed, her bonded arms straining behind her, as he pushed her down on her back. She kicked out at him as he began to undo the laces of her pants, and he seized her by ankles and twisted them so that tears sprang to her eyes. This is not happening, she thought. He ripped at her pants and pulled her tunic up, exposing the expanse of her belly.

“Leave her be,” Aein said in a dangerous voice.

Cauliflower Nose struck him in the face. “Shut up or you will feel my knife between your ribs.”

Something splat against Snow White’s face. Turning to the meat on the spit, she saw that it was rapidly darkening in patches, as though putrefaction were spreading at lightning speed. A locust landed on her cheek. It clicked its mandibles as it regarded her through its eyes. Her heart leaped. A little way to her right, she saw that one had landed on Aein too, and then another. More locusts covered her exposed flesh until she and Aein were besieged by the little green insects.

The insects covered her like a living blanket, but she felt no fear.

Then the air blackened as a thousand glittering locusts descended onto the little clearing. Their wings hummed as the men cried out and covered their faces. The soft-bellied insects struck their flesh and tried to worm themselves into their eyes and mouths. The panicking horses tried to tear away their tethers.