Forbidden (A New Adult Paranormal Romance)

by Dawn Steele

  Aein smiled. “Awl was always the best among us. He too was approached by Thulrika to vote otherwise. But Awl has very much been his own person.”

  The sound of galloping hooves made them all turn to the Pass. A red-faced Kalle tumbled into the clearing astride his horse, rushing as though all the monsters in the world were behind him. He brandished his sword above his head.

  “Demon!” he screamed.

  His thundering, wild-eyed horse made a course for Aein.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Get out of the way!” Snow White flew to push Aein and Awl from the rampaging warhorse’s path.

  She stumbled. The clop-clop-clop of hooves filled her ears. She turned to see the horse with its wild ringed eyes bearing down on her. The air was slick with the smell of horse sweat and deep, pungent earth. Her terror surfaced again, along with the bell-like clanging of Kalle’s words: I will not cut out her heart! For the last time, father, she is not a demon!

  Had he changed his mind?

  Two whirlwinds of color bolted towards the horse. Nevue and Ravanne, protective as always, were trying to veer the animal off course. Kalle’s sword arm was raised, poised above the Bambengas’ heads. He doesn’t know who they are, Snow White thought frantically. He probably thinks they are demon spawn.

  “Don't hurt them,” she cried. “They’re my friends!”

  From out of seemingly nowhere, a flash of steel somersaulted in the air. It struck Kalle’s sword with a sharp clink. Kalle gave a cry and the sword fell onto the ground. Snow White shrieked and threw up her arms as the horse vaulted over her. Clods of earth spattered onto her face and clothes.

  From the mouth of the Pass, Ghost came running up with Gustav beside her, looking no worse for the wear. Ghost’s hand clasped another dagger. She had clearly thrown the first one. Kalle’s horse staggered to a halt as he reined it in. His sword arm was now bare. His face was contorted with rage.

  “You dare commit treason against your King?” he roared.

  “I’m merely preventing you from making a rash mistake, Your Majesty,” Ghost called. “It was barely a nick.”

  Kalle whirled on Snow White. “You,” he gasped, pointing at Aein, “lay with that . . . that thing? It is a demon, an abomination from the fire pits of hell!”

  Aein rushed to her side. He helped her up. “Are you all right?” His gaze dipped down to her still flat belly.

  “Let me handle this,” Snow White said. She spat out bits of soil and turned to Kalle. The King dismounted and swiftly strode towards her. When she saw the fury on his face, her courage melted, but she straightened her back.

  “He is not a demon,” Snow White heard her voice ring out without any trace of the fear she clearly felt. “He is not an abomination.”

  “He raped you!” Kalle said, shaking with anger.

  “No one made me do anything I didn’t want to.”

  “He tricked you then. Deceived you into lying with him.”

  “No one deceived me. He is the man I fell in love with.” Somewhere out there, the universe shifted. Stars collided and smashed themselves to dust. “Who saved me when I needed saving. Who loved me because of me.”

  “I don’t think he’s an abomination either,” Gustav remarked, “if my opinion counts.”

  “Ssssh,” Nevue warned.

  Kalle was very close to Snow White now. At her side, Aein tensed, ready to pounce. She could see Ghost getting ready to throw the dagger. She would betray her King for me, Snow White thought in amazement. Then she understood. Ghost was a representative of Chiva, and Chiva took no sides. Everything they did was beholden to what they believed was right.

  A kernel of deep insight began to spark within her.

  What I believe is right.

  “Why is it so hard for you, Kalle,” Snow White said, “to understand that I love this man?”

  “Demon!” Kalle spat. But he halted nevertheless. His stance was that of a cobra, ready to strike. A look of raw pain crossed his features, and suddenly, Snow White understood. It wasn’t so much that he abhorred demons or aliens on a visceral sense. It was the fact that she had chosen Aein over an eligible, very human King who desired to take her as his wife.

  “Kalle,” she began.

  “Don’t speak to me.” The Lapp King raised his head, which seemed to have taken on the burden of the world. He pointed at Aein. “This will be settled. Right here, right now. Choose your weapon.”

  “No,” Snow White said, stepping in front of Aein.

  Aein gently nudged her aside. “Let me handle this,” he said, echoing her words.

  If Snow White’s world wasn’t already spinning, she would have smiled.

  Kalle strode to the spot where his sword had fallen. He picked it up as Aein stepped away from Snow White. Bonebreaker slid out of its scabbard with a hiss.

  “I can’t believe you’re really going to fight,” Nevue remarked, looking from one adversary to the other.

  Gustav took several steps back. “Whoa.”

  Ravanne shook her head. She turned to Ghost as if to say, ‘Do something’.

  “You can’t be serious,” Snow White said hotly. “Look at the both of you. The enemy is out there!” She indicated the sky, though she had no idea where the enemy would come from, or indeed if they would come at all. “And here you are, squabbling over your maimed pride like wounded children.”

  Kalle brandished his sword expertly before him. “This is not about you, Princess, much as your own pride likes to think it is. The enemy we face is right here. He is responsible for all this.” He pointed his sword tip at Awl. “As is his conspirator. If you side with them, you’re a betrayer to your own human race.”

  Aein raised Bonebreaker with both hands. The blade, which had seen so much bloodshed, caught the low rays of the setting sun like some sort of coda to the day. His feet dug into the earth, tense and waiting.

  “I’m not betraying anyone or anything!” Snow White said. It was not a fair match. Kalle had been honed in sword-fighting since childhood. Aein had merely picked it up a couple of moons ago. Then again, Aein was faster than anyone she knew and that conferred an otherworldly advantage.

  Someone was bound to die here.

  “Aein is trying to help us,” she cried. “I told you all that. I thought you believed me the first time.”

  “You kept truths from me. It was my own father who alerted me to what you really are, a turncoat to your own kind. How can you live with yourself, knowing what you have done? It is only because you’re a woman that I’ve spared you so far. When I’m done with him, I’ll deal with all traitors to the land.” Kalle’s last note rang ominously in the already charged atmosphere.

  Snow White’s reserves were rapidly dwindling. She felt fatigued and desperate beyond measure. How as she to drum sense into people who did not want to see?

  “This is not your fight anymore, Snow White,” Ghost called. She sheathed her dagger within her jacket.

  Snow White dredged up the last vestiges of her resolve. “Oh, yes it is. It’s our fight. All of us.”

  This is what it means, she thought, to die for what you believe in. She had laughed at the historical accounts of heroes who had done so for Bavaria in her past. Now she understood what it was to believe in something or someone so much that she was willing to be beheaded for it.

  They were all interrupted by the sudden beating of wings. A flock of sparrows angled in from the west, traversing the wide expanse of the lake. They circled, twittering, above the center of the lake. The air suddenly smelled of burned grass although Snow White could see no smoke in the vicinity. The hairs on her arms stood on end.

  Awl became energized. He waved his arms back and forth, cackling in his sibilant speech. Snow White turned to where he gesticulated.

  From the mouth of the Pass came four figures. One was Flyx, who bled from a cut on her right temple. Another was Maise, whose cocoa-colored skin wore a sheen of grey. They trudged wearily on their feet, their arms circled around
the shoulders of two other beings: a massive lion and a large bald eagle walking on its legs.

  Snow White’s jaw dropped. The creatures seemed almost biblical, so austere and absurd were they.

  “My brothers.” Aein began to run towards the approaching quad, followed by Awl.

  Snow White blinked as Aein and Awl embraced the lion and the eagle. The animals nuzzled the brothers and allowed themselves to be petted. The lion’s fur was singed in several places. The eagle was in a sorrier condition – feathers fallen off in patches and several talons missing. The smell of carrion carried over in the wind. There was something unspeakably sad about the reunion.

  Flyx disengaged herself from the strange siblings and limped over. Her left ankle was clearly twisted. She cast angry eyes at Ravanne as she came closer. “I will no longer be your boy servant.”

  “You never were,” Ravanne replied.

  Maise ran into Nevue’s embrace.

  “Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Kalle roared.

  But no one could. They were all feeling equally dazed.

  The sound of a cyclone in a massive tunnel droned behind them. In alarm, Snow White turned to the lake. The waters in the center were being sucked into a newly created hole, whose whirling contours gaped like a mouth with a bottomless gullet. In the diminishing twilight, the water was murky, ominous.

  Aein and his siblings ran to the edge of the lake.

  Snow White joined them. “What is it?” she asked Aein anxiously.

  “Whatever happens,” he said, “I love you.”

  “Don't say that,” she cried. The world began to fall from her feet once again.

  Kalle and the others bounded up. “What manner of devilry is this?” the King demanded.

  “Not devilry.” Gustav’s eyes gleamed. “But visitation.”

  The Bambenga viewed the violent lake with awe.

  “It is this we have come to witness,” Nevue said with a zeal bordering on fanaticism.

  “Even if it kills you?” Snow White said bitterly.

  The whirlpool deepened, roaring like a hundred waterfalls. In the sky, the birds took away in fright. Snow White clung to Aein. The Bambenga clung to one another. Gustav tightened his grasp on Ghost’s hand. He was speaking into her ear, telling her everything that was happening.

  Only Kalle stood alone. His sword was still raised, a futile gesture in the face of the infinitesimal unknown.

  Something shimmering rose from the depths of the lake, as though a star had fallen in the waters and was now claiming its right to ascend.

  “You told me you have four brothers,” Snow White shouted in the din. “Where’s the fourth?”

  Aein shook his head. “I do not know. Neither do the others. We can only assume Systenak was killed.”

  “What does that mean if one of you is missing? What if your voting reaches a stalemate? What’s going to happen to us?”

  A shining sphere the size of a small cottage rose from the dark waters. Its surface was rippled with rainbow luminescence. Snow White thought she fleetingly saw other worlds on it: continents, maps, seas. The sound rose to earsplitting proportions.

  Judgment Day had arrived.

  Several linear cracks, gleaming a bright crimson, appeared in the sphere. It’s bleeding, Snow White morbidly thought. The cracks lengthened across the surface like the sections of a peeled orange. Accompanied by the sound of breaking glass, the sphere cleaved apart.

  “I always knew there were beings from other worlds,” Gustav yelled beside Snow White, “but no one believed me. When these aliens begin their annihilation of us, maybe everyone will listen to me now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Aein and his kin watched with growing concern as the MegaPod splintered open above the Wormhole. The wind that razed across the waters carried with it the scent of burning amber, flesh and trepidation.

  “I thought we’re supposed to go to them,” Awl said, “not them come to us.”

  Meis, who took the guise of a lion, remarked, “Something’s changed. I don’t feel good about this, brothers.”

  “We are only four instead of five,” Vajal, the eagle, added. “Would they accept our Judgment?”

  Aein tensed as the MegaPod revealed two familiar figures. Their wings shimmered like gauzy veils as they flew out of the structure.

  “What are they?” he heard Kalle say in a hushed tone.

  “Did you think that beings from other worlds would look like us? That sphere there is their otherworldly carriage. Now would be a good time to wave your sword.”

  “Don’t egg him on, Gustav,” Snow White warned.

  Aein said, “Snow White, everyone, stay back, all of you.”

  “No.”

  “You will only get in my way.”

  The sudden force in his voice made her back off. He saw the hurt on her face. His soul squirmed a little as she scrambled into the darkness, pulling Gustav with her. The Bambenga followed, and finally Kalle. An air of helplessness trailed after them.

  The Sporadea came closer. Framed against the darkening sky, Thulrika was magnificent in her size and wingspan, easily dwarfing her companion, Dimynedon. From his time spent on Earth, Aein realized how the Sporadeans must appear to the gawking humans – like massively enlarged flying ants.

  Dimynedon wore a sneer on his handsome face as soon as he spotted Aein. The newcomers hovered in the air above the lakeshore, fanning the surface of the water into ripples. Thulrika held a Krysk scepter in her right uppermost limb. The siblings stood their ground, wary.

  Aein spoke loudly: “You’re not supposed to come.”

  For the first time, he noticed the gleaming red rod in Dimynedon’s grasp. It was partially concealed by his flexed middle limb but it peeked out on occasion when Dimynedon flapped his wings.

  “Change of plans,” Thulrika said airily. “We grow impatient at your lack of progress, princelings.”

  “We have arrived on the day and time,” Aein retorted.

  “But you are only four. Five is the number needed for Judgment. If Judgment cannot commence, then we shall proceed to colonization.”

  “Nonsense,” said Awl. “By the laws passed down from Fytenach the Fair, Judgment will be carried out nonetheless. We demand to taken to the Council.”

  Thulrika fanned her wings impatiently. “The Hive armies are waiting on the other side of this Wormhole to march upon this world. We have tarried long enough already. Our resources grow scarce while we wait upon your weary dithering.”

  The four siblings exchanged glances.

  Meis put forward one of his scarred paws. “I wish to state my verdict. There is honor among the furred beasts of this land. They have a conduct of leadership, family and community that is as great as Spora has ever known. I vote ‘against’.”

  “And so do the feathered beasts of the sky,” Vajal put in. “The strongest and mightiest rule, but it is not a code based on cruelty, merely necessity. I too vote ‘against’.”

  Aein sucked in his breath. The shining face of Snow White, lips parted in a half-protest, floated in his mind’s eye.

  “I vote ‘against’,” Awl said.

  “And I likewise,” Aein added. “We have no right to judge or colonize any world. I propose a barter between our worlds. Our gold, which lies unwanted on our land, for their trees. This way, there’ll be no bloodshed. Our trade will flourish.”

  Thulrika and Dimynedon listened, unruffled. Almost as though they expected the answers.

  “Fine words, princeling,” Dimynedon finally said. “But why trade anything when you can get it for free?”

  He pointed his rod at Aein.

  “No!” Meis sprang at Dimynedon, his scabbed body shielding Aein. The rod discharged a red pulse, a beam of energy that sizzled like the hiss of a snake. Before Aein could react, Meis landed belly first in the shallow water, splashing all present. His inert body smoked. Aein could smell the singed fur.

  A red-hot anger descended before his eyes.
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  With a roar and little concern for his welfare, he launched himself at Dimynedon, who tried to beat his wings to climb upwards. But Aein caught his cousin’s lowermost legs and held on. The red rod slipped from his grasp and into the waters.

  “Where’s your weapon now, you coward?” Aein cried.

  Dimynedon pounded on his scalp as Aein tightened his grip around his cousin’s legs. Wings beat fiercely, their gossamer fabric just out of Aein’s reach. The wings were the frailest part of a Sporadean and if he could just tear them, it would greatly incapacitate Dimynedon. In the periphery of his vision, Aein saw Thulrika strike Awl on the skull with her scepter. Awl fell to the ground, his eyes glazing over.

  “No!” Aein said in anguish. For a fleeting moment, he saw Awl as a child, the older brother who was handsome and strong and everything Aein wasn’t. The old envy rushed to the fore in addition to the ever-present guilt for hating his brother and loving him at the same time.

  Vajal flew into the air, harshly crying out in his eagle’s voice as Thulrika gave chase.

  “Aein!” He could hear Snow White’s call from the ground as he struggled to grab Dimynedon’s wing. A zing flew past his ear as an unseen projectile almost took a part of his flesh off. Hovering not more than ten feet across from him, Thulrika lowered the smoking scepter. A shadow descended from the heavens, and in dismay, Aein saw that Vajal was inert. The eagle plunged, a hole scorched in his breast. He hit the lake with a mighty splash.

  Now Aein was the only one of his brothers left alive. It occurred to him that Dimynedon and Thulrika had planned this all along. He now feared for his mother – what had they done to her? Impotent rage made him strain his right arm to the limits. He felt his shoulder joint almost pop. Seizing the tip of his cousin’s wing, he pulled as hard as he could. The silky fabric held for an interminable moment, then ripped. Dimynedon cried in pain. He lashed out at Aein. Sporadean wings healed easily, but it would take an Earth week at the very least.

  Aein felt his grip on his cousin’s legs slip.

  “Let him die. We’ll tell the Queen and Council that the natives have indeed killed the royal siblings as we suspected. They will gladly declare war,” he heard Thulrika say before he fell.