Sinfully Delicious: Six Scintillating Stories of Sweets, Treats, and Happily Ever Afters

by Gauthier, Crystal L.

  “Princess! Princess! We’re coming! I’m coming for you! Stand away from the door!”

  “Oh for,” she reached for the handle, “there’s no bloody lock on the thing,” and pulled, and the small budge was quickly yanked away, whoever was on the other side holding the door closed.

  She tried again and Rollu watched in horror as understanding dawned.

  “They’re going to kill you now.”

  “What?”

  “Check the back! There must be another way inside!”

  Rol reached for her, touched her shoulder, pulled quickly away when she flinched from his hold. He raised his arms wide, unassuming, unarmed. “My lady! I overheard Lord Bajin and Master Unsted plotting your death. To poison the cake for your wedding feast to the Master of the Hunt and blame the same on a patsy.”

  “It’s not my wedding day!”

  “Why wait? You’re alone with a stranger and only Lord Bajin to claim otherwise.”

  She looked from Rol to the door, the door that was being held closed on the other side, the muffled arguments too soft for her to overhear in the hall beyond. “He’ll send my guardsmen around back. Come in while they’re searching for the entrance. Kill us both. No witnesses to the deed, and he the heir presumptive as my affianced.”

  Yes, his thoughts exactly!

  How had she come to the same conclusion so quickly when it had taken Rol far too long to realize the plot?

  “We need to flee!”

  Wait. What? “No, we need to think of a way to convince your—”

  “Rollu. Have you any weapons to defend yourself with? Do you even know how to fight? The moment my men leave, he will come through that door and kill us.” She reached for him, dragged his hand from his side, up to her heart, her eyes wide in terror, assured in her deductions, determined to survive. “We need to flee and find people we can trust to turn to once we’ve outrun Bajin.”

  “I do not know your city.”

  “We’ll make do.”

  Bajin slammed his shoulder against the door. “Get outside and find a way in!”

  She swallowed as she looked at him, flinched when the wood sounded to splinter though the heavy oak did not budge.

  He nodded, grit his teeth and nodded. “This way.”

  Chapter Nine

  He might no t have thought things through very well.

  That was the thought he had as he ran through the city streets clutching the princess’ hand and pulling her along with him Gods above only knew where.

  Somewhere she would be safe.

  Somewhere away from her husband-murderer-to-be.

  If he could get them to the castle, her father’s guards would take over the detail of protecting her! She could tell the king Rol’s story and he could corroborate it in turn.

  Everything would be fine then!

  Except he’d already taken turns he didn’t remember. And the pounding of soldiers’ steps at his back didn’t allow for a moment to think.

  They turned down an alley and he pushed her behind a pile of refuse, the trash collectors not due until tomorrow to pick up the lot.

  The bags of garbage aided in hiding them, but if he blanched at the smell, he couldn’t imagine what she thought of the same.

  He leaned close when a group of guardsmen stopped at the alley entrance.

  Whether his body a shield over hers, or to hide himself, he couldn’t say, but she didn’t press him away, and she waited until he moved off her to push out of the foul-smelling trash and retake the hand he extended towards her.

  He scanned the signs he could see from their position in the darkened street.

  A tanner, by the smell.

  He thought he saw the head of a bear on the sigil.

  There were no tanners near Unsted’s shop, nor any place he frequented.

  He chanced a look at her face, the fear and uncertainty in her gaze, confusion, as lost as he was in this city they called home.

  Hell.

  “There!”

  The soldiers who spotted them bore a fox insignia over the right breast of their tunics. Had they worn the palace crown on their coats, it might have been safe to deliver the princess into their hands, himself along with her, and march to the palace to be heard and judged.

  But they did not, and they were too quick to pull knives from their weapons belts in their approach to be aught but enemies.

  She tugged at her heavy skirts and he hauled her forward, outracing the men chasing them through twists and turns, ever farther from the safety of the known city, hopefully confusing their pursuers as easily as they were lost themselves.

  Chapter Ten

  Rollu pulled he r close as they passed the tree line and entered the edges of the King’s Wood.

  He’d not meant to turn them towards the same, but his knowledge of the city was limited to the main square where Unsted sold his wares, the small shops that lined its boundaries, and the vendors’ lane that carried the ingredients that Rol was often sent to procure.

  How was he to know where the butchers hunted in search of meat?

  Meat had never been his great forte in the kitchen after all.

  He kept them pressed against the rough bark of a tree, ears straining to hear above the rasping of his breathing, the thundering of his heart, listen for the sounds of pursuit quickly catching up to them.

  She clutched at his shoulders, struggling for air as frantically as he.

  “How long do you think he will chase us?”

  She laughed bitterly at his question, and he wished the light of the moon was a bit brighter so that he might make out the expression on her face. “He has never lost his query. He will hunt us till our end.”

  Gods, well, that was ill news.

  “Surely your guards will search you out too!”

  “They will yield to his suggestions. They will not know he is not to be trusted, and I do not know who of my father’s men would hold him to allegiance.”

  Rol cursed and she stiffened in his arms. “Apologies. I did not mean to offend—”

  “You didn’t. I just haven’t heard your tongue before. I forgot for a moment that you are not of my country.”

  He shifted, pulled away from her, created distance between them that his embrace had minimized.

  She was right.

  He was a foreigner.

  What reason did she have to trust him?

  “Apologies.”

  “No, I didn’t mean—”

  He forced a smile to his lips, though he doubted she could see him in the dark. “I understand, Your Highness. But I have lived here for many years now. It became a home when I was in desperate need of one. I would not betray the same. Not for any cause unjust.”

  “And my death is unjust?”

  Her slim fingers curled over his bicep, the lightest of holds, nearly unfelt except for the press of heat to him.

  “Very. I do not know you, but I have heard tale. The people say that you would be a blessed ruler. That already you do more for this land than many nobles of the same right and rank. For a chance to have you rule, I think many would risk much to see you safe.”

  He swallowed after his outburst, glad the pale moonlight likely hid his blush.

  It wasn’t a lie. The stories he’d heard of this solitary princess were extraordinary. That she would someday make a good and just queen, undoubted.

  He didn’t mention that he would like to see the day.

  Gods…

  He didn’t even know her!

  Barely knew her…

  But she was kind and compassionate and sweet and the thought of her at risk because of the machinations of a man supposed to love her…

  “Should we head back into the city?”

  “Perhaps. Matihilda would hide us at her pub but it is a good distance away and I’m not sure we would—”

  The braying of a hunting dog interrupted his response.

  This time, when she stiffened, it was not out of questioning Rol’s motives that sh
e did so.

  “I have seen them hunt.” The whites of her eyes glowed eerily in the dark night, the panic making them bright with unshed tears. “We cannot outrun them now.”

  Best to try.

  If they were caught, his life was surely forfeit.

  The Fox wouldn’t hesitate to run Rollu through, and, if the man played his role correctly, Bajin could kill the princess in the same stroke, and blame her fate on the baker’s apprentice turned kidnapper.

  What the hells had he gotten himself into?

  “ There! Do yo u hear it? A stream or a river. Just ahead.”

  She didn’t ask what purpose the same would serve, too exhausted to risk the words, too out of breath to form them regardless.

  Her gown was in shambles around her, pieces of her skirt ripped away and tied to rocks, thrown as far as he could manage into the bramble and bushes of the forest, hoping to distract the dogs from their pursuit.

  That the mutts had yet to catch them was a sweet mercy she didn’t understand.

  Maybe they were thrown off by the scent of ginger lingering on his person.

  She glanced over at her companion, struggling towards the rise before them, the branches he pulled aside to make room for her to pass through the trees.

  He took her hand and they moved slowly towards the sound of the water.

  His hand had grown clammy with sweat, but his grip never faltered.

  She wouldn’t falter either, not when it was her life he risked his own to save.

  The river came into sight, far greater than she’d thought, not remembering how quickly the water could flow after the fall rains.

  She was not a poor swimmer, but in her gown and as tired as she was…

  “We cannot cross that.”

  He didn’t restate the same, didn’t lie that they could, didn’t tell her they had to try.

  He dropped her hand, and his legs gave out, his larger body sinking onto the borders of the river’s edge, knees in the mud though he didn’t seem to mind as he stared at what had been a promise of salvation now turned bleak end.

  “How far from the main roads are we?”

  She didn’t rightly know. A mile, maybe more? “Too far to outrace the dogs.”

  The moonlight was better here; the trees not having marched their way to the riverbed quite yet.

  She could see his face, the way his eyes squeezed closed, crow feet gently edging their corners, making her want to run her fingertips across the lines, smooth away the stress from his brow.

  Instead, she slipped to her knees at his side, her dress ripped and torn and mud stained.

  He remained part ghost, the white flour on his clothing so at odds with their bleak surroundings.

  When she took his hand, he flinched, turned his gaze to hers, his dark green eyes shadowed with more than the darkness around them.

  “You did not have to help me.”

  “They were going to poison you on your wedding day and blame me for the deed.”

  “That doesn’t mean you had to help me. It would have been an easy thing to run from them and their machinations.”

  “Then you would have been murdered.”

  She smiled, a small, bitter and longing half-smile that made no sense and yet, looking at this man, felt right. “You don’t know me. You don’t owe any duty to me or my family.”

  His mouth opened, but he had no words to respond with.

  Tasiya leaned forward, a small, uncertain gesture, certain only in her desire for the same, and pressed her lips to his.

  It was a brief kiss, barely a peck, really, yet when she drew back, it took effort to open her eyes, to meet his gaze in the present, where they were hunted and at risk, where she couldn’t linger over the taste of cloves on his breath, the ginger that scented the air around him.

  “We can follow the river bed. There should be a hunter’s lodge somewhere near its shores. Bajin was always speaking of it as a second home when he was forced to the woods during the winter.”

  “Then he will know where to look.”

  Yes, “but it will at least give us a place to make a stand, rather than uncertain ground ripe with winter chill and the damp of the fall rains.”

  She squeezed his hand, trying to convey confidence.

  The skepticism on his face didn’t waver, but he nodded all the same.

  “I will follow you.”

  He would let her lead.

  Her gingerbread man, set on saving her, not even knowing why.

  She didn’t stop herself, consider stopping herself, from leaning forward again and placing another kiss across his mouth, this one lingering, simmering, as his hand cupped her cheek and held her close, as she lost herself in his heat.

  “Lead the way, Your Highness.”

  “Tasiya. Call me Tasiya.”

  The baying o f the dogs found them before they reached any perceived sanctuary, lodge or path to a lodge or anything else.

  The path along the river’s edge was riddled with inlets and gullies and mud caves that formed and dissolved as the river’s waters grew and diminished during the year.

  Rol forced the princess into one of the tiny hollows, the mud covering their backs, pressed into the slick as they were, hoping that the fetid stench would forestall the dogs’ hunt for a moment.

  The hounds came into view, larger than he’d thought they’d be, snarling and yipping as they stood atop the bank scanning the river line, unwilling to risk uncertain footing as near the roiling waves as Rol and Tasiya stood.

  They growled and stalked the upper ridge, but their masters refused to dismount their horses, and Rol held his breath, waiting.

  Tasiya tangled her fingers in his dirty shirt.

  The mist and spray of the river had soaked his clothing through. He could not imagine that her gown, even with its multitude of layers, provided much warmth in the dead of night, the water raging around them.

  A whistle split the air.

  Someone shouted but the words were lost to the natural world.

  The dogs whimpered and backed away.

  She made to pull away from the side of their dugout, but he held her in place, his gut telling him they weren’t safe yet, that the fox was still on the hunt.

  Rol looked up through the thin gaps of dirt and rock over his head, the places where tree roots had broken through the wall of the river’s bank to form their small haven.

  The horse that pawed the ground was dark and black, eyes blazing red, so it seemed, in the glinting moonlight, his rider as malevolent as the beast itself appeared.

  She gasped and he pulled her face against his chest.

  The rider couldn’t have heard her sound, yet the man paused, searching.

  Rol held his breath.

  The huntsman raised his hand and the hounds brayed.

  The ground shook as the horses surged by in counter measure to the coursing of the river.

  He released his breath, closed his eyes and held tighter to his princess for a moment, only a moment, before they slipped from the small cavern and braved the rocky shoreline to a place they could climb from the river’s edge towards the forest above.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mud slicked an d water logged, Rol trudged after the princess through the woods, eyes peeled for any hint of the forest lodging she’d mentioned.

  They’d left the bank of the river a time back, whatever safety it might have provided gone as they traversed the woods, broken branches and heavy footprints leading the way to finding them.

  Any hunter worth his salt would know what to track.

  Rol didn’t know what else to do.

  Neither hunter nor soldier nor swordsmith.

  Only a baker.

  He was exhausted. He wanted his bed. He wanted to forget about this insane scheme of the Lord of the Hunt and his master and the princess, and yet he couldn’t, already too deeply ingrained in the madness.

  A root snuck up to catch his foot.

  He nearly sprawled to his face try
ing to wrestle free of the offender.

  He was lucky, for his crouched position behind the bramble bush meant that the torchlight flaring ahead of him passed him by harmless.

  Tasiya stood with her back to a tree, the dark of her dress her own saving grace though her hair might easily catch the light if they weren’t careful.

  The hunters were gaining on them.

  And there was still no sign of the house they were seeking.

  He let himself look up at the lady, the controlled way she held herself, so certain and cautious, afraid yet daring.

  He wished he had her courage.

  Apparently drawn to women of equal strength and presence.

  His heart pinged in memory of the lady he’d lost long ago, yet the lady before him bore her no resemblance.

  The princess…

  She was beautiful in a way he’d never known back home.

  There was something about her that engaged the whole of his being, made him yearn to protect her, wanted to be near her, wanted to see what she’d say to a gingersnap fresh from the oven, or maybe a molasses tart with a cinnamon garnished slice of banana.

  Nothing lemon.

  He’d avoid lemon, knowing she already liked it. He’d make her something different and unique and—

  “Gingerbread man. We need to move. I think we’re close.”

  He shook his head, not sure how to respond to her whispered comment in the middle of the forest.

  Not her comment.

  The name.

  He opened his mouth, but she gave him no time, slipping from her hiding place to slink forward through the branches and bushes and towards whatever destination she promised they were seeking and he’d yet to see sign of.

  He was fa r more resilient than she thought he’d be.

  Hells, she was more resilient than she thought she’d be.

  Whether she’d failed to fall to tears was because of her own inestimable character or because he was counting on her guidance to survive, she didn’t know.

  Royalty rules for those who cannot command themselves. We offer our judgments so that our subjects might thrive.

  She’d forced him from his bakery against a mad plot to her life and followed him into the woods neither she nor he knew well enough to traverse, and he’d obeyed because she was a princess and royalty was to be obeyed.