Sometimes the fear was the pleasure.
After that first night, when they had been equals in passion, it was Rui who must win every battle and Anais who must concede. Oh, he was ever mindful of her and never forced her to do anything that might degrade her, but there must be no doubt who was master and who servant. When she finally realised his true nature, it was too late. She could no more do without him than she could breathing.
One day he had pushed her up against a wall in a rarely used servant’s corridor, tearing at her clothes in his haste. Anais watched herself in his eyes, a fair, golden queen, and tried to convince herself that this was love. Suddenly, she became aware that they were not alone. Snow White, the Snow Bitch, stood at the end of the corridor, watching them. She had only one of her attendants with her, the youngest one. For a moment Anais could only stare at her in confusion. Had Snow White and the dwarf been holding hands? Then the reality of her situation flooded her, and she gasped and pushed at Rui’s shoulders.
“Stop,” she cried frantically.
He raised his head and followed the direction of her gaze. He stared at Snow White, and Anais saw her stepdaughter’s image in his eyes before he turned back to her and resumed what he had been doing.
“Let her watch,” he grunted as he pushed against her.
“No.” Anais struggled in his grip. “She’ll tell the king. Stop.”
“She won’t say a word,” said Rui. He continued without pause, but all the while Anais could see that he watched Snow White and that his pleasure came from the fact that she watched him. The girl and her companion stood unmoving until Rui had finished, then, without ever uttering a word, they turned and left. Anais straightened her clothing, then looked up into Rui’s eyes but she couldn’t see her reflection there anymore.
That was when she first hated her stepdaughter.
Sick with fear, Anais spent the rest of the day in her rooms. She was left alone until deep in the night when Rui finally came to her. For once, he wanted nothing more than to talk to her, but as she listened to what he had to say, she felt her blood turn cold.
He spoke of the death of the king and how Anais would rule as regent for the child Snow White who, although almost eighteen, still had three years before she could act in her own stead unless she should marry. In three years anything could happen to a young girl. Who could say if she would ever reach her majority? As regent, Anais would have power enough to ensure that her seat upon the throne was inviolable, and Rui would rule beside her. No more fear of discovery.
“I could have you in front of the whole court and no one could say us nay,” Rui breathed against her ear.
Anais looked up at him. “Do you love me?” she asked.
“You are the fairest of them all,” he said, and once more she could see herself in the mirror of his eyes.
“Make love to me,” she whispered and, for once, he did. Rui’s body covered hers, his dark eyes never leaving her face as he moved within her. Anais wanted to look away. She didn’t want this. Knowing what he was and what he was capable of, the languid tenderness with which he pushed into her was unbearable. He made her forget her doubts and her fears. He made her want him until that want was a fire within her that she feared could never be quenched. When he kissed her now, it was slow and sweet, his tongue caressing her mouth like wet velvet. This time her climax rolled over her like a warm blanket, soft and comfortable. At the last, Rui closed his eyes and a shudder ran through him as he spent himself inside her. He lowered his head to rest it against her shoulder.
They lay like that for a time, neither talking nor moving, and then with a sigh he pushed himself off her. His cock, finally sated, lay soft and vulnerable against his thigh.
“So,” he murmured. “Will we do it?”
“It?” Anais said, although she knew well enough of what he spoke.
His lips curled in an ironic smile. “It,” he said as his hand traced a lazy circle on Anais’s bare hip.
Desire uncoiled deep within her again, lust and fear forming an uneasy alliance in her stomach. “It won’t be easy.”
“Easier than you think. An old man and a girl?” He moved down the bed to kneel between Anais’s thighs. His warm breath stirred the damp curls of her sex. She trembled. “Let me take care of the king. The rest will follow.” His mouth settled against her aching flesh, his tongue flicking out to caress her, rough and warm. Anais gasped, arching against him, her fingers tangling in the long black silk of his hair. He licked and suckled her into a boneless, screaming mass of pleasure before rearing up and thrusting himself deep inside her. There was no tenderness this time. Anais stared up into his beautiful face as he pounded into her. He had shown he was capable of tenderness. She loved him, for all that she sometimes feared him too.
“Open your eyes,” she whispered.
His mirror eyes flew open, and Anais stared into their blue depths. His breath came shorter, his lips drawing back from his teeth.
“Yes?” he gasped as he shuddered his release into her.
“Yes,” Anais replied, answering his question. They would do It…
Yes.
She was the fairest of them all, and for now that would have to be enough.
The king died the next night. An apoplexy, they said. Anais never asked Rui how he had accomplished the deed. Snow White and Anais stood side by side as his gold-embellished casket was sealed into his tomb. They did not speak to each other. Only the High Priest would enter the king’s tomb to perform the blood rites that would send his spirit onto the Pillars. The rest of them must wait outside until the ceremony was completed. It was a bleak, cold day. A bitter rain was falling. Over the wind and the sharp hiss of the rain rang the bells of Gessedian Cathedral. Snow White’s fair hair hung to her waist and her pale grey eyes were colder than the rain. To Anais’s eyes she looked as brittle as glass. She could almost imagine that if she leaned forward and touched her that Snow White would shatter into a myriad of icy shards. Rui stood behind them. Anais couldn’t see his face. He kept his head lowered so that his long black hair hung down around his eyes. But the faintest of smiles curved the sculpted lines of his mouth.
When the ceremony was completed, Snow White and her seven dwarves all bowed to Anais before they left. One by one the courtiers drifted away with murmured words of respect and condolence. As queen, it was Anais’s duty to spend the night in prayer before her husband’s tomb. The bells finally stopped tolling at midnight. Anais drew in a deep breath. In the sudden, all-pervading silence, it sounded ragged and far too loud. She suppressed a shiver, huddling deeper into her woolen cloak. The candles ringing the catafalque cast grotesque shadows over the carved stone walls.
“I thought those damn things would never cease.”
Anais whirled about. Rui lounged against the entrance to the tomb, his colour high and his eyes glittering feverishly in the fitful candle light. He straightened up, executing a bow. “My Queen,” he murmured, moving towards her.
Anais took a step back, then another until the catafalque pressed against her back. Rui leaned over her, one arm on either side of her body. She could smell wine on his breath as he lowered his mouth to hers.
“Are you cold?” he whispered. “I’ve come to make you warm.” One hand dropped to the placket of his breeches whilst the other pulled at her skirts. He took her against her dead husband’s tomb before he led her back to the palace.
And so Anais was, to all intents and purposes, queen. At least until the Snow Bitch came of age. It was a far merrier court than when the king had been alive. A glittering casket of a court with the brightest jewel, the fairest of them all, Anais, with her dark huntsman by her side. If any of the courtiers looked askance at the baseborn upstart who ruled the queen’s heart as well as her body, they were too well bred to express their displeasure. Especially when the queen’s stepdaughter expressed nothing but respect and obedience towards her stepmother. Or her lover.
On the night of her eighteenth birthday, the Snow Bi
tch even let the queen’s huntsman lead her into a dance. Anais sat upon her throne watching them, swallowing jealousy along with the wine in her goblet. Along the far wall, Snow White’s seven dwarves watched too, their eyes as black and cold as a winter’s night.
Snow White danced with fluid grace, as supple as silk in Rui’s arms. Yet her face wore its customary mien of glacial indifference. Anais’s fingers tightened around the stem of her silver goblet as she saw the expression in Rui’s eyes. As if sensing her regard, he lifted his eyes to hers, but whatever she thought she had seen was gone. He smiled at her, and she shivered at the dark promises that smile held.
A promise of pain that made her stomach clench with fear.
A promise of pleasure that made the sex between her legs throb with anticipation.
The dance ended, and Rui led Snow White back to her seat, bowing over her hand with insolent grace before sauntering back to lean over Anais’s throne and kiss her throat.
“She dances well,” said Anais tightly.
Rui lifted one straight black brow. “Well enough,” he said lazily, kissing his way down her throat until his teeth grazed the sensitive place where her shoulder curved into her neck. He brushed his knuckles across her satin-clad breast. “Not as well as you, my Queen.” His hand opened and he squeezed her breast roughly. “Now come to bed or I swear I will have you there on your throne with all the court to watch on.” His voice was hoarse. She could smell the excitement on him, a dark feral scent. Her wild huntsman.
Her terror.
And her love.
The court rose as she did, heads dipping and knees bending as Anais walked past. Snow White and her dwarves, as they always did, bowed with impeccable courtesy. Anais felt Rui’s fingers tighten on her arm. He practically dragged her to her room, kicking the door shut behind her ladies as they bowed their way out. Taking hold of her gown, he ripped it open and pulled it from her body. He tore off his own clothes, pushed her down and took her there on the floor and twice more before they reached the bed.
The last time, as he hung above her, shuddering and sweat-soaked, Anais looked up into his mirror eyes. “Am I still the fairest of them all?”
“Yes. Oh gods, yes,” he moaned as he surged into her. He trembled a moment before dropping his face against her neck.
Anais recalled the way he had looked at the Snow Bitch that night and wondered if he lied.
From then on, jealousy and hatred of the Snow Bitch consumed Anais. In everything she did, Anais could feel Snow White’s winter gaze upon her. She spent hours thinking of ways to rid herself of the girl. Poison wouldn’t work because the dwarves tasted everything that was put before their mistress. An accident of some sort seemed the most logical choice. She discussed it with Rui one day as they stood in the mews. He was feeding his falcon with bloody titbits. The bird took the morsels from his bare hands daintily, despite the fierce power of its beak.
“I could cut her heart out for you.” He grinned and squeezed the bloody scraps between his fingers.
“Would you?” She looked up at him. “Could you?” she asked more softly.
He ran his fingers across her lips, smearing blood over them before he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed it off again.
“Yes,” he answered.
She sought reassurance in his eyes before she nodded agreement.
“A-hunting we will go,” murmured Rui as he lifted her skirts, his fingers skimming over her damp, eager flesh. “A-hunting we will go,” as his other hand loosened the ties on his breeches. “We’ll catch a fox and put it in a box,” as his phallus nudged at her opening, thick and hard and burning hot. “A-hunting we will go,” as he sheathed himself to the hilt.
He held himself still, his breath coming fast, his hands closing tightly upon Anais’s shoulders. He began to thrust fiercely against her, so hard that she was driven against the wall. She dug her nails into his arms, wrapped one leg around his lean hip and matched his rhythm. Rui bared his teeth at her, tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her head back. He dropped his mouth to her throat. She felt his teeth graze her flesh, gently at first then more fiercely. His hips pumped wildly. Anais strained to reach that place where thought tumbled into mindless delight, but she felt Rui’s release deep inside her, his breath gusting hot against her neck, and he slid out of her before she could fall over the precipice.
Breathing hard he straightened his clothing. He planted a swift hard kiss against Anais’s lips. “A-hunting we will go,” he said again. With a flash of white teeth, he turned away from her.
“Rui,” Anais said, frustrated desire lacing her voice. He turned back to her.
“What?” he said distractedly.
“What are you going to do? How are you going to do it?”
Another flash of white teeth. “Leave the details to me.”
“It will need to be done soon. Her betrothed comes to court at month’s end. She will be eighteen. And wed.”
An expression flashed across his face, gone before she had a chance to recognise just what it was. “Indeed,” he said thoughtfully. “That may be something we can work with.”
“What do you mean?”
He kissed her hard, stealing both breath and reason. “I told you. Leave it to me,” he murmured against her mouth.
Anais watched him walk away, dark, beautiful. Wicked. Something trailed cold fingers down her spine, raising gooseflesh on her arms. He was like a drug to her. A drug she knew would kill her in the end, but one she could not live without. More times than not there was no love in their coupling, just a savage desire to possess and to be possessed. But for the few times when there had been tenderness, and for the knowledge that she would always be the fairest of them all in his mirror eyes, she would do anything and everything to hold him.
The Princess
Snow White didn’t hate her stepmother. When Anais first came to court and Snow White saw how she brought the smile back to her father’s eyes she would have loved her if Anais had allowed it. The golden queen had seemed to be everything that a thin, pale child of nine could wish for in a mother. But Anais’s indifference and Snow White’s inherent shyness had precluded any bond forming between them. Then, as her father’s first flush of new love dissolved into something colder and more desperate and Anais’s indifference turned to something sharper and less benign, Snow White mantled her feelings in a cloak of ice and presented to both court and her stepmother a persona of glacial disinterest. That persona would suit her well as her father abandoned his ambition of a male heir and turned all his hopes upon Snow White once more.
It was then that the way men looked at her began to change. There was calculation in their gaze as well as lust. Snow White gave nothing away. Her expression could have been carved from snow, so blank and cold was it. In truth, although she well knew her worth as a future queen, she had no understanding of the games that men and women played. The hot looks and sweet words of the lords of her father’s court meant little to her.
Besides, her father had grander plans for his Snow White. A betrothal with a prince from the north. The papers were signed on her sixteenth birthday. They would wed when she was eighteen. There had also been an exchange of portraits. Like all northern men, he was dark, with a wide smiling mouth and laughing black eyes.
“He looks charming,” Anais had said in a bored voice.
Snow White had tucked the miniature away in a chest.
On the night of her birthday, her father had given her a gift. Seven dwarves from the mountains of the east. They had black hair and even blacker eyes. Their skin was the warm gold of sun-ripened barley. The tallest of them was almost of a height with her. He met her eyes and looked away, but not before she had seen the resentment burning there. The top of the youngest one’s head came up to her chin. His eyes were sad and gentle.
“They will protect you from all harm,” her father said. “They are bound to you and you alone.”
Another burning look from the tallest dwarf.
/> Snow White thanked her father and led her new attendants back to her apartments.
The eldest was called Ander. The tall one with the burning eyes was Gault. Kaffion and Meris were twin brothers, impossible to tell apart. The quiet, scholarly one was Shyla. Hiram liked to joke. The youngest was Kaliko. They became her shadows, her protectors. But try as she might, she could not overcome the fact that they were her possessions. Nor could she make them her friends, much as she longed to. For friends were something she sadly lacked. Something she needed.
Snow White had no doubt that her stepmother had lain with the king’s huntsman. There was hunger in Anais’s eyes whenever she looked at Rui Alvarez that even Snow White could recognise despite her lack of knowledge of the concourse between a man and a woman. She wondered that her father did not recognise it too, but it seemed that his indifference to his wife blinded him to any indiscretions. What made Snow White uncertain and sent her restless to her bed was the knowledge that Rui Alvarez directed that same hungry look at her sometimes when he thought Anais wasn’t watching.
But her stepmother had noticed. And Anais was afraid. Especially after Snow White and Kaliko had come across the queen and the huntsman in the servants’ passageway. Anais’s skirts were hiked about her hips. Rui thrust against her, his breathing ragged. Anais caught sight of her stepdaughter, and all colour fled from her face.
“Stop,” she had cried.
Rui turned his head and stared at them. His eyes were so blue. Snow White could see her image frozen in their lambent depths. Kaliko’s hand had tightened around hers. A slow wicked smile curled Rui’s full lips.
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