Forbidden (A New Adult Paranormal Romance) (10 page)

She fell flat on her face, stubbing her nose on the firm ground and slamming her lower lip against her teeth. She tasted her own blood. Specks of soil wormed their way into her mouth.

She lay there, too bruised and fatigued to continue. Metal Hat scooped her up, secured her wrists, and laid her across the horse.

“I’m tempted to carve you up and eat you,” he said, “but I owe a debt to a great lady who doesn’t deserve a son like Gorm. When I was a child, my sister and I were abandoned in the woods. We crept to a cottage, which in turn housed a witch.”

Snow White could only listen fearfully.

“The witch tried to fatten us up for the slaughter, but my sister pushed her into her own oven. We ate everything in that cottage. When we ran out of food, we ate the witch.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Strung as she was on her belly across the horse’s withers, Snow White’s bile pooled into her throat.

“Mother Baron found us and took us in as her own. Despite our taste for human flesh, she never withheld her love for us. It is to this woman I owe a life debt. If she wishes to create a new world order, so be it. You are the prize I’ll deliver unto her.”

They galloped into the woods, the despair deepening in Snow White’s breast.

CHAPTER SEVEN

After an hour, they came to a village. The cottages here were large and handsome, with red shingles that gleamed like wet lips in the sun. Bright paint adorned their walls: mauve, yellow, green and turquoise. Bushes and shrubs were neatly trimmed into the shapes of farm animals. The whole place reeked of forced gaiety. Snow White almost expected the very hedges themselves to burst forth with maniacal, cackling laughter.

All the fear had been wrung out of her. In its place was a calm acceptance, as well as a slowly blossoming anger that refused to be put down.

I’m so tired of being afraid. I’m tired of being tired. If they wish to eat me, at least I’ll go down kicking up an indigestion storm.

The image of her doing this was so pleasing that she lifted her head with renewed vigor. She noted the curious women and children who came to watch them canter into the village square. The women’s faces were weathered and lined, and their bellies were swollen with child. They wore brightly patterned skirts of brocade, silk and velvet, all embroidered with rich laces. Many carried a baby or a toddler in their arms. Several richly dressed children clung to their skirts.

Snow White noted that they were all women and children. No men save Metal Hat. The children beside each mother strangely did not resemble their siblings.

This is a robbers’ village?

Metal Hat led them to the largest house of all – a sprawling T-shaped mansion with turrets. Ivy clung to its sturdy red brick walls.

A boy helped them dismount. His hair smelled of freshly baked bread.

“Hansel,” he said to Metal Hat, his eyes shining, “you’re home.”

Hansel ruffled the boy’s straw-colored hair. “Off with you now, son. Tell your aunt we’ve got a live one.”

“Yes, father.”

“Always call me Hansel.”

The boy nodded with reverence, then rushed off.

“You have a son?” Snow White remarked.

“Is that so strange to you?” Hansel pulled Snow White by the unwilling arm towards the main door.

“I had you pegged as a cannibalistic boor,” she said, wrenching away.

“Oh, so we’re no longer the frightened maiden now.”

“No, I decided that I’m going to die clawing your eyes out.” She swallowed. Anger was good.

“Bold words,” Hansel said. “Let’s hope you won't have to eat them when we’re finished with you.”

He locked her in a parlor decorated with gorgeous tapestries: scenes of ladies in printed clothes, fanning themselves amid cherry blossom trees and pagodas. The chairs were lined with velvet. Chandeliers dripped with gold and crystal. Exquisite objects were strewn on ornately carved tables – bejeweled music boxes, strands of pearls, figurines made from ivory and jade. Nothing like a dagger or a hatpin, however. Damn. They had taken away her hunting knife too, the one she used for slicing apples and threatening Aein.

Poor Aein. The least she could do was not let his sacrifice be in vain.

While she waited, she alternated between plans. Flee the house. Get caught and hauled back. Flee the house. Get caught and be eaten. Lapland seemed farther and farther away, a pipe dream that would never be realized. Aein’s beautiful face flickered before her eyes. A lump came to her throat. Was he being gutted even as she sat in this parlor, plotting a sketchy escape?

Don’t be a weak fool, she told herself angrily.

She seized a large jade figurine of an Eastern woman in long, flowing robes, and placed herself next to the door. God help Metal Hat if he didn’t have his hat.

She waited a long while, sweat slicking her palms. The figurine almost slipped from her grasp. Dire visions of being locked in this room forever danced in her mind.

Just when she thought her arms would drop from weariness, the lock clicked in the door. Snow White raised the figurine. She was suddenly aware of how weak she was, malnourished from a week of eating nothing but apples, dry bread and cheese. Why, she could scarcely carry the makeshift weapon above her head! Her arms and shoulders trembled with the strain, but it was too late to backpedal now. She was committed.

The door opened. The figure that strode in was not Hansel. Too late and it didn’t matter. With all her feeble strength, Snow White brought the jade figurine down on the mousy brown head.

Before it struck, a hand snaked out and rapidly caught her right arm. Two strong arms grabbed her waist. The figurine slipped and crashed onto the floor.

“Stupid girl,” muttered Hansel, twisting Snow White’s arms behind her back. “Leave her alone for an instant and she tries something stupid.”

“Ow!” Snow White cried. Hansel’s fingers dug into the soft flesh of her arms, already sore from previous manhandling.

The middle-aged woman whom Snow White attempted to brain appraised her with her hands on her hips. She had the demeanor of someone who was not easily fazed by anything. Indeed, Snow White reckoned, the woman would remain calm even when a blizzard swept the rest of this room away.

“This is my sister, Gretel,” Hansel said. “She doesn’t take kindly to impertinent visitors.”

He wrapped a twine cord around Snow White’s wrists that bit painfully into her flesh.

Gretel’s cheeks wore a spotty discoloration that was a sharp contrast to her ruby necklace. Her large breasts hung almost to her waist. When she opened her mouth to speak, Snow White saw that several of her teeth were missing.

“Exquisite,” Gretel said. She grasped Snow White’s chin with her sharp, scarlet-lacquered fingernails and turned it this way and that. “Amazing bone structure. Hips a little narrow, but she’ll do. Where did you find such a prize, brother?”

“Excuse me,” Snow White interrupted, struggling in Hansel’s iron grasp, “but I don’t care to be examined like a cow.”

Gretel ignored her and continued her inspection. She grabbed Snow White’s breasts through her tunic and squeezed them roughly, measuring their size and firmness. Snow White gasped. She wasn’t used to anyone fondling her.

“Why, you – ” she began, but gasped again when Gretel dove for her crotch.

“Long story, sister, but Gorm won’t be returning for a while, so it will be for you and me to ascend several notches in Mother Baron’s favor.”

“Her favorite has finally fled the roost?”

“Let’s hope so.”

Gretel seemed unconvinced. “He has returned before. And each time, she welcomes him like the prodigal he is.”

“No matter.” Hansel caught his sister’s faraway look. “You’ve been lost in your thoughts a lot more lately, little sister. What is it?”

Snow White was aware of an undercurrent here, but it was not something she could grasp at the moment.

“Think nothing of it.” Gretel’s face turned impassive again. She pinched Snow White’s arm, not unkindly. “She looks a little thin. Not to our taste. For supper tonight I have snared us a tender young virgin, only seven years old, plump and milk fed. It will be a feast well deserved.”

Despite her self-admonition to be strong in the face of danger, Snow White felt her stomach turn.

“Come with me, child. Mother Baron awaits,” Gretel said. She reminded Snow White of a stone wall.

She led Snow White down several passages swathed in damask, followed by a watchful Hansel. Every time Snow White stumbled, Hansel propped her roughly up. The bruises continued to accumulate beneath her skin. I must resemble a blue-and-black patchwork, she rued.

They entered a hall with crystal chandeliers and lighted wall sconces. A carpet that must have deteriorated the eyesights of a thousand weavers covered the entire floor, its red-and-black motifs too complicated to follow. An extremely old woman lay on a plush, high bed swathed with pillows. The bed sat upon a dais where you might expect to find a throne. A very strong scent of roses emanated from the woman, mixed with the smell of feces and decay. Several fat leeches sat on her exposed, skeletal arms.

The old woman’s eyes were bright. Two pregnant handmaidens propped her back up with two equally pregnant pillows.

“My children.” The old woman held out her wavering arms. Several leeches dropped off.

Hansel and Gretel immediately swarmed to the old woman, devotion spilling from their gestures. Hansel clasped the old woman’s right hand while Gretel stroked her left. The handmaidens glared.

“Grandmother,” remarked one, “you shouldn’t exhaust yourself.”

“Nonsense,” the old woman said gaily. Her voice wheezed like wind in a reed. “I will always have time for my children and their little ones. Each one of you is more precious to me than my life blood itself.”

Some of that life blood was leaking out onto the white sheets, courtesy of the leeches. So this was the infamous Mother Baron. Mother to murderers, rapists and brigands. Despite her fearsome stature, Snow White could feel the warmth emanating from the old woman and the love in her eyes as she gazed upon her adopted children. She hastily swallowed the lump that was threatening to form in her throat.

Mother Baron turned her wrinkled face to Snow White. “My word, Gretel, what a treasure you’ve brought me.”

“It was actually I who found her, Mother Baron,” Hansel said.

Gretel shot him a frosty glare.

“Why are her hands tied up? Release her bonds immediately, Hansel,” the old woman said in a mock scolding tone. “She shouldn’t have to be strapped up in her new home. Come closer, child, let me see you.”

Reluctantly, Hansel did he was told. Snow White felt the twine unwinding from her chafed wrists. Someone nudged her forward.

Mother Baron smiled, showing browned teeth, of which a significant number were missing. “Ah, lovely, lovely. If my eyes have not failed me, I must say that you are by far the loveliest creature I have ever seen, my pet unicorn included. Beautiful children will spring from your womb, would you not agree, Gretel?”

Mother Baron’s breath smelled a thousand years old. Despite that, her aura up close was staggering. Snow White could feel magnetism radiating from every pore of the old woman. Mother Baron commanded attention in a way that oracles and prophets did, even more so than Queen Isobel.

“If the right father can be found,” Gretel quipped.

Snow White’s gaze lingered on the tummies of the handmaidens. She had a sudden awful premonition.

“If you may permit me, Mother Baron.” Hansel took a step forward to the dais. “I believe I am worthy to be – ”

“Hansel, I love you to bits, but it’s time to test out new blood,” Mother Baron said gaily. “The next round for you perhaps. What is your name, child?” She directed this at Snow White.

“Um,” Snow White said quickly, racking her brains, “Mantodea.”

“Mantodea.” Mother Baron made a clicking sound with her tongue. “What a strange name. Are you in any way foreign?”

“My mother’s from Lapland,” Snow White said, wondering how she came up with this stuff. “I’m on my way to meet her but I got lost. I’m sure, as a mother yourself, you’d understand what it’s like for a mother to lose her child.”

“Oh, my child, my child. No one understands loss more than I.” Mother Baron clasped Snow White’s hand. “I’ve had twenty-seven sons and thirty daughters.”

Snow White’s eyes grew round.

“All my boys were the best in what they did until they met untimely deaths. Many were hung for being robbers, though we have been blessed by the fruits of their labor.” Mother Baron swung her hand at the dazzling riches. “Others were dropped by feuds and cholera. Twenty of my daughters died in childbirth.”

Twenty! Snow White felt faint.

“Along the years, I’ve had to augment my family with lovely new children such as Gretel here, who has given me twelve healthy young ones.”

“And eight dead ones.” Gretel’s voice was wry.

“I’m getting closer to producing the Holy Grail of family quests.” Mother Baron leaned closer. “A perfect child.”