Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (30 page)

“Is this our future?” She had not meant to ask, but the dream was so golden, so perfect, and she longed to know.

He smiled and laid her down gently onto a bed of white and pink rose petals. The meadow grasses and oxeye daises swayed above them as he teasingly traced a finger along her nose. “Pretty witch-wench.”

She smiled, thrilled by his endearment even as part of her remained anxious. Yes, he loved her as she loved him, but outside the dream, what hope was there for a future for them? He was a knight, and she was a village hedge witch. If Magnus married, it should be to a lady, like the
Alice
he spoke of too often for her comfort.

“I can bring you no lands, no treasure, no influence,” she murmured against his neck. “Perhaps I should offer you a love philter, to draw and win you a gentlewoman bride.” A hollow, sad thought, grinding in the pit of her heart.

“No, beloved.” he touched her lips and kissed her forehead, her cheeks and her chin, each kiss a feather of tenderness and sparkling desire. “You are mine, always and only. I will have no other.”

He scooped a handful of rose petals and spilled them into her hair. “Your skin is sweet and tender, smoother than a rose petal.” He licked her ear, swirling his tongue into the narrow creases, and she shivered, scarcely believing the shimmering delight it evoked in and through her.

“I could learn and relearn you forever, my beauty.”

“As I could you,” she managed to gasp, teasing in return. “My beast.” She sprinkled petals across his black curls and beard and, growing bold, tweaked up his tunic and packed a handful down the front of his black braies.

“Naughty elfling!” He blew a loud, mocking kiss against the base of her throat and she felt herself dissolving in helpless laughter.

She deftly unlaced the top of her white gown and traced a deep scar across his cheek and nose with the tips of her fingers. “How brave you are, how mighty and terrible.”
But never cruel
, she added in her heart, acknowledging his great kindness.

His brown eyes adored her, and she basked in their sun glow.

He snapped his fingers, and at once a golden chalice appeared. He dipped
a wooden cup into the chalice and offered it to her. “Happy Solstice!”

A thread of disquiet wormed into her before she reminded herself it was midsummer, the longest day of the year. She took the cup and sipped. “Ah, so sweet.”

“Good, eh?” He leaned down and kissed her sweet lips, licking the traces of mead off her mouth. “And more goodness to come.”

She felt herself blush and shyly fingered her long hair. “What if someone comes here, to this meadow?”

“Then they will see only grass and flowers. You have such a pretty color.”

The heat in her face increased. “What if someone hears us?”

“Who is to hear, my bride? Everyone else is celebrating the summer. As we will be.” He wove her more tightly into his arms.

“Am I your bride?”

He traced his fingers down her spine. “Mine, and this is my wedding day.” He dipped his head and kissed her again. “Yours, too, my bride in white, my Snow Bride.”

Someone else called me that,
she thought, then gasped, closing her eyes and relishing as he drove his tongue into her mouth.

“I am master today,” he muttered, patting her rump.

Her eyes flew open. “You were master yesterday and the day before.”

“I love that sulky pout of yours.” He patted her again. “Do you object, Lady Elfrida?”

She melted at being called a lady by such a man, her new husband.
Or, if as Magnus said, this was their wedding day, were they to be married
? She was not sure, but now his warm, brown eyes and his smile made her forget everything else. Before she knew it, he was cupping her breasts, freeing them from her loosened bodice.

He drew a long, pink ribbon from his tunic.

“My first bridal gift.” He lifted her white robe, caressing her tensely nervous legs, thighs, and bottom. “Hands, please.” He tapped her arms and tied them at the wrists with the ribbon.

“Happy bridal, my sweet.” He stroked her exposed breasts, one after the other. “Round as the English apples, and all for me.” He flicked the ends of the ribbon between her bosom. “And nipples that will be pinker soon than this little trinket.”

Shy again, she jerked her hands, trying to cover herself, but his arm stopped her, and the soft tie trapped her wrists securely out of range of his sweeping fingers.

“Pretty,” he murmured, sliding his hand between her legs, tickling her with soft, tormenting circles that went faster and deeper. Soon her whole backside was tickling and throbbing, and she ground her sex against his, wanting more, wanting him. She felt the ribbon rub against her wrists and flutter between her breasts as she writhed.

In the far distance, she heard a party roistering in another meadow, and her voice mingled with their drunken singing.

“Red wine, white roses...”

“Please, sir!” She wanted to clutch him, take him, have him.

Magnus fingered her. “Such a snug, lush place. I shall give it my full attention presently, but first—”

Elfrida moaned as he ran his mead-slicked tongue across her breasts. When he cupped her breasts, dragging her gown more firmly beneath her engorged nipples, she groaned and again tried to free her tied hands.

“Touch you!” she pleaded. Her nipples felt hot enough to burst, and there was a fiery sweetness flooding through her.

“My pleasure,” he said smugly, winding a brawny arm about her waist, “but later, my Snow Bride. Let me melt you more.”

“No!” A new voice rang out across the meadow, strident and arrogant. “I freeze you to my will! You are
mine
, Snow Bride!”

At once the dream changed, becoming winter-dark and cold, bone-achingly cold. She shrieked as the piercing chill flayed her skin and turned her limbs to ice. The ribbon round her wrists writhed like an adder, flashing pink to red to black, and then, most terrible of all, Magnus vanished. He stepped back into the shadows, turning his back on her with no word of farewell or sign of love or kindness, and was gone.

“Wait!” she cried, feeling hot tears streaming and freezing down her cheeks, but the land was empty. The meadow about her was now changed into a wood, where mistletoe berries glinted from gnarled oak branches and the midwinter night pooled over all.

She shuddered and woke, her eyes burning with still more tears, her head pounding and aching. Beside her, the brazier was utterly spent, burned down to ashes, and the tower was in darkness. Her white bridal gown and marriage, the mead, the summer’s day, the rose petals, were things of fancy only. She was alone in the place of her enemy, an adversary who had invaded her dreams when she was at her most open and vulnerable.

I almost yielded, and had I done so, would it have been to my lover or to the
Forest
Grendel?

The awful thought made her skin clammy and sickened her.

Or what if the summer part of the dream is true, a warning? What chance have I truly with Sir Magnus, a famous knight of the realm?

Shuddering, she drew her cloak around her and rocked herself for childish comfort, trying to regather her scattered wits.

I must get light again. I must light the brazier. Do not step outside the salt circle! What is out there? What are those shadows I see gathering by the north wall?

But riding ahead of all the other galloping panics in her mind was the vital question, where was he?

Magnus said he would return to this tower by nightfall. Why is he not here?

Chapter 22

The guard left with Magnus was the youngest and weakest, a creature with patched clothes, straggly dirty-blond hair, beady rat-like eyes, and a rat’s long, pink nose. Magnus detested him on sight, the more so because he recognized the type—a wheedling bully, with inferior weapons and a weak mind, who would fawn to those above him and kick those below him.

He kicked Magnus because Magnus was acting maudlin drunk and Gregory Denzil was watching. Magnus endured two more kicks, one directly to his groin that had him sprawling and gagging on the sodden cellar floor. The pain was raw and nasty, and he gave himself up to it, writhing in the mud between the barrels of salted meat and wine, set up on a storage platform above the murk and filth.

“Ha! Not so proud now, are we, crusader?” Gregory Denzil watched him, amused, and the rat-guard with him sniggered and sneaked in another kick. “But where are your sword belt and sword, man?”

“Where is my little Snowflake?” Magnus wheezed in return, with an anguish that was not feigned.

“Haul him up,” Gregory Denzil ordered, before the red-and-green haze had cleared before Magnus’s eyes and the pain in his balls had reduced to agony instead of
let-me-die-right-now
. Coughing, spitting, bleary-eyed, he was dragged to his feet by three of rat-guard’s stouter companions.

“He is to stand there all night, at guard,” Denzil repeated. “Make sure he does.”

“Yes, lord.” Rat-guard was scurrying with Denzil to the door, receiving the key from him, bowing and scraping like the little rat-arsed runt he was. “I will be vigilant, lord, have no fear.”

And
the cellar key now in his grimy tunic
.
Magnus whimpered, swaying on his legs. “Sleep, must sleep,” he hissed, turning his plea to a choking gargle.

Denzil’s deep-set eyes glowed like mounds of treasure. “Oh, you will sleep,
Sir Magnus.
Sleep for good and all and beg for it, afore I am finished.”

As his captain left, Magnus heard rat-guard turn the key, grinding and clanking in the lock. When he could no longer hear Denzil’s footsteps, he stalked from the middle of the cellar, past some wine barrels, to the wall.

“Hey!” Rat-guard tried to kick him and failed, tried a shoulder barge and only deflected himself into a barrel of salted pork. “Come back! Stand! You stand!”

Magnus stood with his back to the wall and grinned down at the little sniveling snot. “Make me,” he suggested.

Rat-guard’s reddish eyes glinted, and he looked ready to explode with puffed-up rage. When his ears were as scarlet as his face, Magnus needled him more by adding, “I am going to sleep now, so what are you going to do? Call the real guards?”

“Get up!” The bully, impotent as are all confronted, faced-down bullies, actually stamped his foot. “Damn you, get up! Get up!” He looked ready to kick himself.

“When it suits me.” Magnus slid down the wall to settle in a crouch, with his eyes still fixed on the foot-stamping, twitching guard. “Let me know when the moon stands high.”

The guard jerked his shoulders as if stung and tried to out-stare Magnus. Magnus thought of the warrior who had slashed open his face, the warrior whom he had killed, and allowed the weight of the memory fill his own stare.

After a moment, the guard blinked and looked away.

“What is your name, soldier?” Magnus asked. He had established his authority, and now he gave a little.

“Bernard.”

He was certainly not as tough as a bear, as the meaning of his name implied, but that suited Magnus very well. “Do we understand each other, Bernard?” he asked softly, sitting down fully and crossing one leg over the other. “If you summon more guards to subdue me, you fail. If you try to force me to your will, you fail. Do you want to look soft to Gregory Denzil?”

Bernard colored like a girl. “You were drunk,” he said in a puzzled way, as if that explained everything.