Forbidden (A New Adult Paranormal Romance) (12 page)

Aein narrowed his eyes. The golden beetles, which had been sent to scout this world, did not prepare him for this. But then the golden beetles were notoriously piecemeal when it came to gathering information, especially when so many of them were quashed before they could return. In Spora, there was no room for relations within the same gender. He wondered if this was a common Blue Planet trait.

“What is a maharajah?” he said.

“A great king who commands many elephants. I see by the look on your face that you have never heard of elephants. They are enormous creatures.” The hand crept to Aein’s manhood. “Enormous.”

It was strange that the inhabitants found him attractive. This body was unwieldy and deformed. Walking upright was a challenge, and having four limbs instead of six even more so. It was strange to be found beautiful at all, he who always had been considered so hideous that Sporadean children clutched their parents as he walked by: “Mother, why does the fifth prince look like that?”

“Perhaps you should untie me,” Aein said. He was not sure how this act would be performed, but he knew – given the perpetrator, who now cupped his testicles with mounting pressure – that it would be cruel and degrading.

“Not so fast, my beauty.” Scarface unfastened the ties in the front of Aein’s woolen pants. Aein felt extremely uneasy. This was all wrong, like Snow White being fondled and that Karsissian slave being raped and thrown off the spire. He wore nothing beneath those pants, and as Scarface prized the flap open, Aein wondered if he should wake the others. Or would they join in?

“Please,” he said softly, “it will be . . . better if you untie me.” He didn’t know exactly
what
would be better, but his bonds were beginning to chafe his wrists.

Scarface raised Aein’s tunic to reveal the hard flesh of his stomach. “Perhaps,” he murmured as he caressed the ridges. “So fine, like a marble statue. Truly, you’re made like the gods.”

Aein strained against his bonds, his stomach muscles rippling.

“Did you know,” Scarface said, his breath hot in Aein’s face, “that it’s likely your girlfriend never escaped. Hansel, who is not with us, has cannibalistic tendencies. He has no doubt tracked her and is at this very moment serving her ripe body to his sister on a platter of herbs and spices.”

The awful realization dropped on Aein. His world stopped rotating and he could see, with great clarity, Snow White with an apple in her mouth, bound and wheeled into a large stone oven. Red sparks exploded in his eyes. Before he himself could understand what was happening, his bonds had come apart and his wrists were bruised and free before him. Scarface’s jaw fell open, but before he could yell, Aein struck his head with a blow that sent the older man sprawling.

His own reflexes surprised him. He didn't know he could move so fast in this cumbersome body.

Scarface rolled to his feet and drew a wicked-looking knife.

“So,” he said, “the beauty awakens his inner beast.” He lunged at Aein’s chest.

Aein neatly sidestepped the knife and grabbed Scarface’s outstretched arm. With a strength he didn’t know he possessed, he broke the arm at the elbow. Scarface screamed. The knife fell and thudded onto the ground.

The men around the bonfire woke up and jumped to their feet. Gorm reached for his sword while Milky Eye seized his axe. Aein faced them, his hands bare.

#

Snow White gripped the armrests of her chair. They were only three in the tower chamber now. Gretel had locked the door behind her and pocketed the key.

Twin One, whose name was Wilhem, had tied her wrists to the armrests with rope. His intentions were entirely honorable. From a distance of ten feet, he was trying to aim an arrow at the apple on top of her head. The bread knife still nestled between her breasts. Snow White could not find it in herself to brandish it yet, not when the twins were only twelve years old.

Honest to truth, they reminded her too much of Tom Cherry and his brothers – only they were fairer, better-looking and more articulate.

“Don't move,” Wilhem said, squinting his eyes.

“I’m not moving,” Snow White squeaked.

Twin Two, Gustav, flipped a page of the book he was reading on his lap. He didn’t look up. “Did you know there are over one billion stars in the night sky, and we can’t see most of them because of inferior telescopes? If I had all the money in the world, I’d build myself a super telescope.”

“You do have all the money in the world,” Snow White said, hoping her jaw wouldn’t wobble the apple off her head.

“Ssssh,” Wilhem said. This was followed by a twang and a swoosh. Snow White felt the wind on her brow and a load was suddenly taken off. Something thudded into the wall behind her.

“Bullseye!” Wilhem pumped his bow into the air triumphantly. “What do you say, three out of five?”

Snow White tugged furiously at her bonds. “I’ve had enough of humoring you both.”

“Relax,” Gustav said. “We have no more desire to take you as wife than you have of your rump being grilled in one of Gretel’s special barbecue sauces.”

Snow White tried to calm herself down. “Then why are you playing along in this travesty?”

Gustav shrugged. “We’re not breeding to you. We’re choosing not to breed. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re minors.”

“No, we’re not,” Wilhem said. “Never dug a lump of coal in all my life.”

Gustav rolled his eyes. As Wilhem began to jump up and down on the divan, he said, “Pay no heed to my brother. He has the attention span of a promiscuous hummingbird. I, on the other hand, have been blessed with superior intellect, a memory that would put an elephant to shame, and an insatiable hunger for knowledge.”

“And an insatiable tendency to use stupid big words,” Wilhem threw in, bouncing from the divan to a Persian throw rug. Snow White cringed.

“Will you please let me go?” she begged.

“Only if you promise not to tell on us,” Gustav said.

“Tell on what?”

“That we’re not touching you with a twenty-foot telescope.”

That was ego-boosting. “OK. I won’t tell.”

Reluctantly, Wilhem released her bonds. His fingers were always writhing, wiggling, doing something, even when he was at rest. Truly, his body sugar quotients must be higher than the average honeycomb, Snow White surmised.

She immediately loped to the window to assess the tower’s considerable height. A fall would surely break every bone in her body. The tower was at the west wing of the mansion. A wide expanse of lawn led to the fringes of the forest.

“Thinking of escape?” Gustav asked mildly.

She swung to him, her mind churning. There were still two of them. Even if she managed to overpower one, the other might leap onto her back.

“We know you’re hiding something between your mammaries,” Wilhem said, his face purposefully mild, “but you’re not using it because you think we’re babies.” He raised his bow with its notched arrow pointing straight for the valley between Snow White’s breasts. “Just so you know, Cupid was a baby.”

Embarrassed, Snow White dug out the knife. Its serrated edge sliced the fabric of her bodice, causing more flesh to be exposed.

“So are you going to use that?” Wilhem said, drawing the bowstring.

She swallowed. “Do I have a reason to?”

Her aim with a somersaulting knife was less accurate than with a dart or rock, so she was afraid she would hit Wilhem’s head instead of the fist clutching the bow. Tom Cherry’s face once again impinged against her attacker’s young features.

“Don’t try it,” Wilhem warned. “I’m faster than you think.”

Still seated with his book open on his lap, Gustav looked from one to the other. “Whoa,” he said, “this is serious. Should I move?”

An idea began to uncurl in Snow White’s head. She could hear her heartbeat thudding in her ears.

She said slowly, “I don’t think you’re babies at all. In fact, I’m going to treat you as grownups. Grownup people make bets.”

Gustav sat up and brightened. “What type of bet?”

“I’m betting I can hit three objects in this room with my knife thrown from here. Three out of three tries, within my visible range.” Snow White spoke quickly lest she lose her nerve.

“This is a trick,” Wilhem declared.

“No tricks. Just a game of skill. You’re good with your bow. I’m good with a knife.” Well, I think I can pass muster. “You get to choose the three objects. Even the apple, if you wish.”

She found herself breathing harder all of a sudden. A bird fluttered in her stomach. What was she getting herself into? She had only ever done this with darts. Or rocks.

“You’ve got to want something,” Wilhem said.

“Well, yes. If I hit three out of three, you help me escape.”

“Help you escape?” Gustav said, exchanging an uneasy glance with his brother. “You’re reaching. If they find out we helped you, Mother Baron will have us whipped for sure.”

“You can look the other way while I escape. And if I tie you up, you can say I forced you. No one will be the wiser.” Snow White’s heart beat erratically. She was gambling on all fronts now.

For a prolonged moment, Wilhem did not move. Somewhere out there, a fork of lightning lit the sky. Thunder rumbled soon after.

Wilhem lowered his bow. “All right.” He grinned. “But I get to pick what you hit, and the way you hit them.”

Snow White forced herself to relax a little. “How do you mean?”

“You obviously wouldn’t have made the wager unless your skills were up to mark. So we’re not going to make it easy for you.”

“We’re not?” Gustav said. He snapped his book shut.

“She needs a handicap.” Wilhem withdrew a crumpled blue scarf from his shirt pocket. It was dirt-streaked and crusted with suspicious yellow material.

“You’re going to tie me up again with that?” Snow White said, aghast. He had probably wiped his nose and other suspicious orifices on it.

“No. We have to raise the bar.” Wilhem shook the scarf out theatrically. “You’re going to be blindfolded.”

CHAPTER NINE

“Lamp with the fancy dragon nightshade. Painting of the woman with the jade earring. Bronze brazier with the frog legs. Ready?”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait.” Snow White’s hands were slippery with sweat. Everything was whizzing by too fast for comfort. Her pulse drumming so wildly that it blurred her vision, she judged each object’s distance. No way she was going to get this right. She wasn’t prepared. She had never practiced throwing anything blind before – not darts, not rocks, and certainly not devious little boys out of a tower window.

She was an entomologist with a dart-throwing hobby, not an assassin!

“Thirty seconds more,” Wilhem said.

“Don’t rush me.”

“You’ve had plenty of time to look around the room before.”

“You’re trying to trip me up,” she accused.

“Time’s up.” Standing on his tiptoes behind her, Wilhem flapped the scarf around her head and secured it tightly over her eyes. In her near panic, she had forgotten how nauseatingly filthy it was. The contents of the room vanished, and she immediately felt her anchor being yanked. She could feel Wilhem’s breath on her cheek and smell his sweaty, unwashed hair as he pressed the blade of bread knife into her open palm.

“Believe in yourself,” he said softly.

Snow White was confused. Wilhem sounded as though he wanted her to succeed. Was this a ploy? Shake the victim all up before you make her walk the gangplank.

“First target. Lamp with the dragon nightshade,” Wilhem announced.

She took a deep breath and tried to temper her disorientation. She remembered the lamp being mounted on a table slightly to her left, the closest and easiest target. For some reason, the legs of the table stood out starkly in her mind – they were painstakingly crafted to resemble some sort of mythical creature’s appendages. She couldn’t even picture the lamp anymore, other than it was cream-colored and dirty.

Too late.

She turned, gauged the distance in her head, and flung the knife with a mild tremor in her hand.

A crash immediately resounded on the floor. Her heart leaped. A strike!

Wilhem did not speak for a while. Then he murmured, “Additionally, my brother and I get to ask you questions.”

Snow White’s bosom strained at her bodice. She wondered how much of her breasts were bared, and if the twins were staring down her cleavage. Or even if they were remotely interested. “That wasn’t part of the bargain.”

“If we’re going to help you escape, we need to know more about where you’re escaping to.”

“Hell, yes,” Gustav added. “Color us curious.”

If she was going to escape, it wouldn’t matter if they knew where she was heading, she reasoned. For all she knew, they might throw in a fur coat as part of the spoils. They certainly had plenty of money to replace a stolen one.

“Lapland,” she finally said. “I’m going to ask the King build me an insect university. I’m going to continue my research there.”

“I didn’t know insects went to university.” Wilhem said.