Forbidden (A New Adult Paranormal Romance) (17 page)

“Aein?” she said softly.

His eyes fluttered open. His irises were brown in the faint lamplight of the caravan.

“You’re alive,” Snow White said, feeling foolish.

He gazed down at his chest and noted the healed wound.

“You knew this would happen,” she said, unable to keep the accusing note from her voice.

“I had faith in the boy.”

“But you knew you couldn’t be hurt. You knew this, and you let me go through it, thinking you'd be killed!”

“Would it bother you terribly if I died?”

“Of course it would. The same way it would bother you terribly if
I
died.” She paused, uncertain. “Would it?”

“Yes.”

This conversation was not going the way she planned, but she couldn’t help herself. All the pent-up worry and frustration of the day now found its way into her tongue.

“Unless you happen to spill one of your precious secrets to me by mistake and find yourself in the quandary of having to kill me.”

He looked away, embarrassed. “I do not think I could kill you.”

“But aha, the thought had crossed your mind. There,” she said, triumphant, “I saw that look on your face.”

“I am conflicted,” he admitted.

“Because I know you’re a god? I’ve seen too much. The cave and the hive. The way you move. The way you don’t seem to know our customs and yet speak our language. And now a bloodless wound that heals.” Her words spilled out in an angry, helpless torrent.

“I am not a god.” He averted his face to the window, where Gustav darted out of sight. “Though I suppose a runt in one universe can be called a god in another.”

“You speak in riddles,” she said exasperatedly. “Either tell me everything or nothing at all! If you’re not a god, then perhaps you’re a demon. Either way, your purpose on our land is suspect.”

“You are not whom you say you are either. You are a fugitive, and you know the reason why. You are just not telling us.”

Snow White trembled. “If I tell you, will you tell me who you really are?”

He squirmed. “Snow White.”

His hand reached out to touch her cheek. Warmth flowed from his flesh to her neck, then down her chest to her belly. His touch was so gentle, so imbued with regret.

“I wish things can be different,” he said. “I wish I had known you in another life. I wish . . . ” The light dimmed in his eyes.

“What is this secret you’re living with that is so terrible?” she said softly.

The air was electric between them. Timorously at first, then with more courage, she moved her lips towards his. It was as if she were drawn by a magnet. The heat climbed to her cheeks. She had never kissed anyone, nor had she ever been kissed. And yet here she was, shaking like she had the night tremors, fully aware that this youth here might not be human.

She paused, her lips inches away from his.

His mouth closed the gap. He kissed her, at first chastely, then with increasing urgency. She responded. He swiftly rose from the bed and pulled her close, his warm mouth never leaving hers. His lips were moist and soft and everything she had dreamt about kissing, and as she drank in his musky scent, she found herself drowning in the sheer pleasure of its intimacy.

He was the first to break the kiss. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, “I should not have done that.”

Time abruptly grounded to a halt. “Why do you say that?” Her painful heartbeat thudded in her ears.

“I will be leaving in less than two moons. I wish that things can be different.”

“I don’t believe in wishing for things.” The taste of him was still strong on her lips. “If you want them to be different, you make them different.” She was aware of how desperate she sounded, and how pleading.

He shook his head. His hands dropped to his sides. “It is . . . complicated.”

Abruptly, Aein rose to his feet, the blanket falling off. He did not look at her. “I am sorry. Think nothing of the kiss. It was a lapse on my judgment, nothing more.”

Bewildered, she watched him walk away. The lamplight dimmed in the claustrophobic confines of the caravan.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The port city of Skiva sprawled on the plains. Two arms of land curled around a bay where a bevy of ships were docked. The caravan trudged through the city gates, which were flanked by guards in crimson and gold uniforms. Raucous morning sounds seeped forth – market vendors hawking their wares, horseshoed hooves clopping on paved streets, carriage wheels trundling over uneven stone. The salty tang of the sea was carried by the wind, and Snow White’s eyes watered. She licked her lips. They tasted like tears.

Skiva was still under her stepmother’s domain, so she kept her hair hidden within a cowl. She rode beside Gustav while Gretel and Wilhem manned the caravan’s buggy. Aein rode behind her. He had avoided being alone with her for the last leg of their journey, something that left a bitterness in her mouth.

No matter, she assured herself. She was finally going to board a ship for Lapland. Aein can do whatever the hell he wished. Once again, her mind returned to the kiss. She angrily tried to swipe its memory away, but its taste lingered – jasmine and warmth and dandelions.

“There’s probably only one ship to Lapland,” Gustav said. “Remember, I’m going to hold you that introduction.”

“What introduction?”

“The one you’re going to make on my behalf to the Lapp King. You’re not going to wiggle out of this, oh no.”

Snow White hesitated. When Aein and she had been technically still together, the plan was to ditch the twins and their mother. Now things had drastically changed. Aein wanted no part of her. There was nothing to do but to make her way to Lapland, as she originally planned.

She stuck her chin out. “Of course. I remember my promises.”

“Good. I’ve been meaning to ask you – do you know your boyfriend’s a spy?”

Snow White almost swallowed her tongue.

“What makes you say that?” she spluttered.

Gustav shrugged, as if it was obvious. “Oh, everything. Not that it’s important to me, I don’t a fig about world politics. But I thought it should bother you, seeing that you’re sucking face with him.”

The thought of Gustav knowing that she sucked face with Aein sent the blood rushing to her cheeks. Had Gustav witnessed her humiliation?

“Why should it bother me?” Her throat felt strangled.

“Well, I thought that as a princess of this grand and gracious land, you’d do what your Dad would do.”

Snow White was stymied. “How can you possibly know what my father would do?” Seeing as I don’t even know myself.

“Hey, don’t get all defensive on me. In the village I come from, there’s this funny little place called the library. Perhaps you might have heard of it. It’s something I read about your Dad. He’s all avenger-like and he wouldn’t stand for spies in his kingdom. No way. He’d put them on the rack for sure.”

That was more than what she herself had read about her father. Isobel did not encourage books about the late King in the palace library, and Snow White had always been too consumed by insects to make an effort to find out more. She was ashamed of this now.

I am not a spy
, she remembered Aein’s fervent declaration.

Her mind churning, Snow White nudged her horse ahead. What Gustav said swam in the back of her mind, its predatory fin cutting the water.

They were in the marketplace. The aroma of meat pies and venison rose from roasting spits. The stalls were decked with gaily patterned tents. Merchants selling everything from ribbons to apples to horse saddles cried out to milling customers. People openly stared at her face. Surely no one could recognize her. As a princess, she had never been the ambassadorial sort who waved from open carriages to folk on festive occasions. Walled up, they called her, in her own insect-filled tower.

They dismounted. While Wilhem tended to the horses, Snow White jiggled her full purse, pilfered from the caravan’s many contents.

She turned to Aein, suddenly feeling awkward. “I guess this is where we say goodbye. Thanks for saving my life.” She could not bring herself to look into his eyes, so she fixed her gaze at a stall piled with copper cookware instead.

“Snow White,” he said urgently, “at least let me come with you until you’re safely on board the ship.”

Gretel overheard. She swung her entire stocky frame and favored Aein with a death stare. She wore a brown cape that covered her skirts, but underneath, Snow White knew that the carving knife swung from her belt. “Still protecting her till the very end?”

“What is it to you?” Aein countered smoothly.

“I don’t need protection, Aein.” Snow White’s voice came out more harshly than intended. More correctly, she didn’t need protection from someone who thought her a pity case or who had dubious motives about her kingdom, when she found the inclination to be bothered about it, or both.

What a wreck she was. She inwardly groaned. Not only was she a terrible person, she was a terrible princess. How could she account for travelling hundreds of miles with a possible enemy of the state and thinking of nothing but her own survival and the taste of his warm mouth?

“Please,” Aein pleaded. “Let me come along with you to the ship. After that, you do not ever have to see me again.”

She felt something alight on her arm. It was a black moth. She frowned. Moths in a marketplace in broad daylight? As if reading her mind, it fluttered off to sail above the heads of the thronging people, who barely noticed it. It landed upon a pillar to which a fresh notice was tacked.

A sudden fear gripped Snow White when she saw the picture on the notice. The market seemingly retracted around her and the buzz audibly lessened as her eyes zoomed in onto the pillar.

It was an inked drawing of her face.

‘
PALACE REWARD FOR MISSING GIRL: If you have information, contact the guards and claim 1000 gold taels!’

Self-consciously, Snow White drew the cowl around her head. No wonder people were staring at her. Suddenly, the busy marketplace took on sinister dimensions. Faces everywhere crowded in and tried to peer into her hood. Shadows grew longer, sharper, darker. Every pedestrian seemed like a potential assailant, ready to spring out at any moment and cry: “There she is! I see her!”

She glanced at Gustav. He was scrutinizing a model of the sun in a cluttered stall. It was a yellow disc with orange flares sticking out from its circumference.

“This is not what the sun looks like,” he declared. “The sun is a sphere.”

The merchant, a thin man with a tall hat and plucked eyebrows, bridled. “Are you saying I’m a charlatan?”

In the background, Aein observed a young boy slip his hand into a fat woman’s basket when she wasn’t looking. The boy pulled out a fistful of coins and scampered away. In another section, an auction was going on. A man was flogging a donkey to get it up on the stage. The poor animal bleated, its hide marked with red welts. Aein turned away, troubled.

Time for a change of plans. The sooner she got out of here, the better.

“I’m merely saying,” Gustav said, “that you have an incorrect representation of the sun. Take your moon, for instance.” He seized a yellow crescent mounted on a stick. “The moon is also a sphere. It merely looks like a crescent in certain phases because of the reflection of the sun.”

The merchant banged a fist down on the table, making his models jump. “If you accuse me of cheating my customers, I will call the guards on you!”

Snow White began to edge away. Promise to the twins or no promise, it was too dangerous to be around here any longer. As Gustav reckoned, there was probably only one ship to Lapland anyway. She would meet them on it if she weren’t caught first. They would understand.

“Hey,” Gustav said, “I was merely making an observation. Consider taking a tall cool drink to alleviate your overactive temper.”

Before the merchant could jump across the table and grab Gustav by the collar, Aein stepped in. “He is merely a boy speaking his mind.” He dropped a gold coin on the table. “Consider this a token for your troubles.”

The merchant grabbed the coin and bit it suspiciously. Finding that it did not crumble, he acquiesced.

“Hey,” Snow White heard Gustav say, much too loudly for her liking, “where’s Snow White?”

People swung their heads to look. As the crowd penned her in, Snow White weaved away, her heart pounding in her ears. After so many days in the wilderness, she wasn’t used to avoiding oncoming people on a narrow path, so she got several elbows in her ribs. Her toes were trod upon by more scuffed shoes that she could count. The sounds of the marketplace continued to assail her from all sides, together with the smells of roasted venison, sweat, and animal hides.

Where were the docks?

“Mantodea!” she heard Aein’s voice call above the din. “Wait up.”

She did not look back. She stepped out of the marketplace and onto the city streets, walking briskly and trying not to draw attention to herself.