Forbidden (A New Adult Paranormal Romance)

by Dawn Steele

  The new generations grew up hungry, frugal and determined never to starve again.

  Aein gazed upon the blighted desert. The golden silos shimmered in the rising heat as far as the eye could see. His home. His world.

  “Spora,” he whispered, and his heart ached for its barren golden beauty. How far would he go to preserve her? Thulrika’s words thundered in his mind: We need this world, and every vote . . . your vote . . . counts.

  The Blue Planet awaited his condemnation.

  “Aein.”

  Her voice stirred his heart. Gnomica! He turned swiftly.

  “Cousin,” he said, faltering at the sight of her at the door. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Her wings ran with purple veins, and were of the softest gossamer. Her supple red carapace gleamed in the artificial golden light. Her eyes were kind as they gazed upon him.

  His spirits sank, as they always did when she gave him that look. Kindness was not a sentiment he wanted Gnomica to bestow upon him. Admiration, perhaps. Lust. Definitely love. But she would never gaze upon him with anything but kindness or pity. His very hideousness prevented that. Perhaps it would not be wise to tell her that he dreamed nightly of running his limbs down her wings, clicking his mandibles gently against her beautiful, slender neck.

  “I have come,” Gnomica said, “to wish you a good journey.”

  “Thank you,” he said awkwardly.

  “Try not to get into too much trouble, cousin.”

  “I’ll try very hard not to.”

  They stared at each other, silence expanding the gap between them.

  “When I come home, you’ll be married,” Aein remarked, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

  Gnomica sighed. “We were betrothed since birth.”

  “Ah yes. The endless betrothal. I wish you a happy wedding, and try not to miss me too much when you’re lying with His Incredible and Brave Handsomeness.

  “He isn’t the monster you make him out to be, Aein. I’ll admit he hasn’t exactly been the nicest of people to you – ”

  Aein snorted.

  “ – but Dimynedon is a brave warrior and a true patriot. If you knew him as I know him – ”

  “Gnomica,” Aein interrupted, “this is my last hour on Spora. I don’t want to spend it talking about Dimynedon.”

  “OK.”

  They eyed each other uncomfortably again, she from her perch at the doorway, and he at the window that framed the golden landscape of Spora.

  “Oh cousin!” Gnomica flapped her wings twice and she was by his side. She wrapped her four upper limbs around his body, holding him tightly against her warmth. “Please, please be safe. I know how headstrong you can be, and foolhardy. Don’t plunge into any situations that will endanger yourself!”

  Aein was floored. No, more than floored – he was in that realm between seventh heaven and absolute despair, because he knew that this was too fleeting and wrought out of pity, not romantic love. His limbs crept up to her wings, those very wings he longed to stroke. Her skin was almost too hot to touch, and as the pain swelled within his chest, he –

  “Your royal highness.”

  Aein turned, all his senses stopped like an hourglass in mid-rotation. A foot soldier stood at the doorway.

  “Your highness,” she repeated, “it’s time.”

  #

  It was well into post-dawn when the Queen and Wolfsbane finally left the bedchamber. Snow White spent the entire night in the cramped closet, finally sliding into a heap when she heard snores coming from the bed. Desperation clawed at her.

  She had no choice. She would run for it. She had no allies, no friends in high places. For the first time in her life, she rued her lack of people skills. Running out to the city square and declaring “Help me, I’m a princess and they want to kill me!” simply wasn’t going to cut it with most folks, especially if the Queen had the soldiers behind her.

  When the bedchamber door finally clicked shut, Snow White counted to a hundred and made a dash for the secret door at the grate. Tom Cherry was waiting for her, the strain showing on his tired face. Like her, he’d spent a sleepless night.

  “So what are you going to do?” He panted as they anxiously sprinted down the secret passage.

  “If I tell you and they catch you, they might torture it out of you. So it’s best I don’t tell.”

  “Snow White.” He grabbed her arm to stop her. “You mean you’re not going to make me come with you?”

  “Of course not. Why would you think that?” She impatiently brushed the hair out of her eyes. “I don’t make people do things they don’t want to do.”

  Tom’s expression suggested he thought otherwise, but relief slumped his shoulders. Snow White was chagrined and disappointed at the same time – she wasn’t that bad, was she? But there was no time to waste.

  She clapped her hand on Tom’s shoulder and said solemnly, “You’ve been a good friend, Tom.”

  To her surprise, he hugged her fiercely. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as she thought it would be – his warmth pressing her entire torso, his hair in his mouth and his earthy, unwashed-for-a-night scent in her nostrils. In fact, it was oddly comforting. She hesitantly put her own arms around Tom.

  “No,” he said in a muffled voice. “You’ve been a good friend, but I never realized it till now.” When they came apart, tears brimmed in his eyes.

  Snow White was at a loss as to how to behave next, so she just nodded awkwardly, staring down at her feet.

  “I’ve got to be going,” she finally said.

  Tom wiped his eyes. “I know. Don’t you want to say goodbye to my Mam?”

  “I don’t think it’s safe.”

  He nodded. “Is there anything you’d like me to tell her for you?”

  Snow White was at a loss. Then she allowed images and memories of Hanna Cherry to flood back – the pillow-like cushions of her arms, the milk smell of her bosom, the aroma of freshly baked bread in her hair, the tuneful lullabies from the foot of a warm bed. Snow White’s eyes moistened.

  “Tell her, just tell her . . . I’m sorry for being such a pain.”

  “You can do better than that. She loved you. More than the rest of us put together, I think.” Tom’s voice was fierce.

  Snow White shook her head. “I’m not so good at expressing myself, so . . . just tell her.”

  Tom sighed. “All right. Wherever you’re going, I hope you’ll find someone to love you as much as she did.”

  Snow White felt a little guilty as they made for the stables, but the words just wouldn’t come to her throat. She saddled her mare while Tom scrounged to fill a saddlebag.

  “You’ll be needing food, water, a knife, a tinderbox. And what if the nights get cold?”

  “Oh, Tom, it’s no different from an entomology expedition and I’ve been on plenty of those. Why, just the other month – ”

  A shadow fell across the doorway.

  Wolfsbane’s muscular bulk blocked the doorway. “Ah. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I’m a fool, I’m a fool, I’m a fool, Snow White repeated to herself as she rode her mare, Coleoptera. A sack larger than her torso was slung across Coleoptera’s withers, filled with bug examination paraphernalia: a magnifying glass, a sketchpad, a net, and various other instruments. She should have made a run for it while she had the chance, but the thought of Wolfsbane breaking Tom’s neck paralyzed her.

  Surreptitiously, she eyed Wolfbane’s large hands – hands which were equally capable of snapping a woman’s waist and pleasuring her stepmother, perhaps simultaneously. Would his palms be callused when he molded their contours around her throat? Or would he use the large hunting knife that swung in its leather sheath, tethered to his waist by a belt?

  The day was breezy and the sun floated above glorious pink clouds, enough to warm the hardest of hearts. But Snow White’s heart pounded with every clop of Coleoptera’s hooves. Alone with her assassin, riding deeper i
nto the Enchanted Forest like a lamb to the slaughter. She wanted to bang her head against the onrushing trees. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  She had started out with the best of intentions.

  “Your stepmother, the Queen, has asked a boon from you,” Wolfsbane said in the stable. He was flanked by two stone-faced guards in livery. “There’s a new species of bug spotted in the Enchanted Forest by the gamekeepers. She wants you to capture one and bring it back. Perhaps, she thinks, she might make a gift of it to the King of Spain.”

  Snow White and Tom exchanged glances. The expression on Wolfsbane’s unshaven face was uneasy, but his tongue rolled glibly with lies.

  “Where exactly in the Enchanted Forest?” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. Tom, on the other hand, wore his terror on blanched cheeks. Wolfsbane paid him no heed. His eyes were fixed on Snow White, a cougar measuring his prey. Once again, she caught the flicker of guilt within them.

  “Northwest, where the honeysuckle is thickest. Two days by horseback,” he said.

  He needs two days to kill me? I must be more of a handful than I thought.

  She held her head up. “Very well, but I will need my equipment. Everything’s in my lab.” Anything to get them off Tom Cherry, whose mouth was opening and closing like a bellows.

  And now they were deep in the Enchanted Forest. The uppermost boughs wove a tapestry above their heads and the sun was mostly blocked out. Unseen birds darted in the foliage. Everything was suspiciously tranquil. The scent of wood and musk flooded the air, but Snow White could not see any wild beasts.

  The wildest beast of them all was by her side, astride a galloping horse.

  Where would he make his move? How fast exactly was his horse, Wolfstomper? Snow White was no equine specialist, but she was willing to wager his black stallion – whose vicious eyes were ringed with white – would easily catch and take a bite out of the rump of gentle Coleoptera, chosen for her specially because she kept falling off as a child.

  Back to her escape plan. Or the non-existence of it.

  “So,” she said conversationally, “how long have you known my stepmother?”

  “About a year and a bit.” He drew his horse to a canter beside hers. He avoided her eyes.

  “Do you love her?”

  He pondered this before replying, “Most people don’t think so, but I do.” He shot Snow White a look that said ‘I don’t care if you believe that’. “She’s not like anyone I know. She can be a little ruthless – ”

  More than a little, Snow White thought.

  “ – but she has layers. She’s a mystery I haven’t wrapped my mind around yet, and I thought I’d seen them all.” He paused before adding, “It’s complicated. I don’t expect you to understand.”

  Oh, so she’s a murderess wanting to make you a murderer, so she’s complicated. Snow White fumed.

  Midday came and she still hadn’t thought of a plan. It didn't occur to her that other girls could only dream of having her face and figure, and she could well use her feminine wiles to lure Wolfsbane away from his mission. But Snow White didn’t have any feminine wiles. Her mind ran in different circles: the scientific, the strange, the obscure, the complicated. It would have shocked her if anyone were to suggest she turn alluring eyes to Wolfsbane and barter her virginity for escape. Snow White was not prudish – growing up, she was used to seeing Tom Cherry and his brothers semi-unclothed – but the very fact that men could find her irresistible was as outlandish to her as wearing a dress made of insects.

  “Do you know how my father died?” she suddenly blurted out.

  “You mean the King? It’s common knowledge. He was leading the chase for a particularly huge wild boar, one that was terrorizing a poor village. His horse stumbled and fell off a cliff.”

  “That’s the gossip parchment version. My father died from eating a bad apple.”

  Wolfsbane raised his eyebrows. “A bad apple?”

  “A particularly bad one,” she said, turning clear eyes towards him. “I was two at the time. No one knows how it got into his breakfast basket, but there it is. You never know who’s going to knife you in the back.”

  “It might have been an accident,” he said, clearly troubled.

  “There are no accidents where royals are concerned,” she declared.

  They stopped for the horses to be watered. As he firmly took Coleoptera, which he insisted on calling Cleopatra, to graze, Snow White saw something alight on a quivering leaf.

  It was a bristling, yellow and black insect.

  Slowly, she drew her gaze to the boughs of the juniper tree above. She hurriedly threw a look over her shoulder. Wolfsbane was tethering Coleoptera to a stake in the ground. Snow White took note of his dark brown leather jerkin and charcoal grey pants, a contrast to her white tunic and light brown coat.

  Her heart pattering wildly, she swung round again, and held out her hand to the insect. It ignored her. Her hopes sank. Those in her conservatory had been nurtured by her, and it took many days of close contact to get them to that level of trust. But insects in the wild would take precious time to bond to. Time that she didn't have.

  A faint cry pierced the air. “Snow White!”

  She froze. Tom Cherry’s voice! It came from the trees south to them, and was carried by the wind. He was looking for her! Possibly on horseback, and possibly backed by his brothers. She flashed a look at Wolfsbane, and saw – from the look of consternation on his face – that he heard it too.

  “I – ” she began, but with several loping strides, Wolfsbane reached her side. She cried out as he caught her around the waist and wrestled her to the ground. Her elbows flared with pain as they struck the patchy grass.

  “Why is he here?” he demanded, pinning her down.

  “Because he thinks you’re going to kill me!” She jerked up her knee to smash him between his legs. Wolfsbane cried out. He rolled off her, groaning.

  “No,” he gasped, “you misunderstand me, I’m trying to protect – ”

  She jumped up and grabbed a small rock with her right fist. His eyes widened. But she did not bring it down on his skull.

  Instead, she flung it at a large conical structure that hung from the juniper tree above. The structure was cream-colored and patterned with whorls that looked like the compacted fleece of sheep. Several insects hummed softly around it.

  Please, she pleaded.

  The stone struck the wasps’ nest dead center.

  “Wha – ” he began.

  Snow White ran, her shoes slapping the ground, and dove into an untidy thicket. The hum of wasps behind her reached an unholy frenzy. She heard Wolfsbane cry out. She didn’t stop or look back. When provoked, she knew that wasps attacked dark-colored objects, including people wearing dark-colored clothes. She ran and ran, the bushes and brambles clawing at her arms and legs, ripping the fabric of her sleeves and pants. A twig struck her forehead just above her eye. Panic made her ignore all pain.

  She ran until her lungs gave and her legs were on fire. She gulped in huge breaths that caused her to wheeze like an old woman. It was only then she stopped, her body doubling over, and listened out for the wasps.

  When no hum came, she waited for a long while, debating whether to call out for Tom Cherry. She decided against it for fear of the wasps attacking her rescue party.

  Instead, she made her unsteady way back to where she left Wolfsbane, the guilt rising to her throat. Her pulse clomped to a staccato beat when she reached the clearing. She wondered if she had the stomach for this.

  Wiping away the hot tears that sprang to her eyes, she took a deep breath and stepped out. The wasp nest was barely dented. A few wasps still circled around it, their anger apparently satiated. The horses and Wolfsbane were nowhere to be seen. Two stakes and two broken tethers lay on the ground.

  Cold fingers of dread crept through Snow White. She had counted on the horses and supplies to navigate out of the Enchanted Forest. She wasn’t going to return home, no way. Now she was stuck in a
hostile forest, with wild beasts and unresponsive insects and goodness knows what.

  A low groan a little way off behind a clump of trees alerted her. She was immediately wary. Should she run? If the horses weren’t here, there was no point in sticking around. But the groan was repeated, and it sounded so much like a death rattle that she could not help but pad through the trees. She wrapped her neck fearfully around a trunk.

  A plump man lay on the ground, immobile. His face and neck were swollen and pink. It took Snow White a while to recognize from his ripped clothes that it was Wolfsbane.

  Shock turned her stomach.

  Oh my God.

  He wheezed, and her chest clenched to see this once magnificent man reduced to a bloated mass. His face turned painfully at her approach. She held her ground, slightly afraid.

  “You,” he rasped hoarsely. Even his voice was strangled beyond recognition. “I was . . . going to let you . . . go.”

  A hard lump came to her throat.

  “Queen,” he went on, clearly on his last breath, “wants you dead. Far north are Laplands. Go. Make your . . . home . . . ”

  And he breathed not another word. His glassy eyes stared at her like a final rebuke.

  For a long while, she did not move. The sweet scent of flowers came to her on the wind, but she did not heed them.

  “But I didn’t mean to kill you.” Her voice came out puny and frightened. “Does it still make me guilty . . . if I didn't mean to?”

  She slid down to her haunches. Her knees trembled. She rocked herself back and forth. I’m a killer, a killer, a killer, her momentum seemed to say. I murder people who are trying to help me. I’m no better than she is.

  Dark thoughts chased one another, along with darker images. She saw herself in a different tapestry of the Enchanted Forest. The handsome horned devil was in the center once again, amid wild beasts that wore the faces of Tom Cherry and his brothers. She was woven into the scene with silver thread, a scarlet dash for her lips. Her feet were doused in flames.