Glass Apples: A Modern Steamy Snow White Fairy Tale (Fairly Twisted Tales Book 2)

by Lux Miller

  Glass Apples by Lux Miller

  © 2019 Lux Miller

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

  luxmillerauthor@gmail.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Please note that this book contains mature content and situations that may be triggering for some and situations that are not appropriate for readers under eighteen years of age.

  ONE

  Raven

  “You’re positively bonkers if you think I’m going to spend my holidays upstate at some dumb alpaca farm!”

  I roll my eyes halfway back into my head for emphasis as I defiantly argue with my sister, Aspen. Truth be told, the idea of kicking around an alpaca farm sounds a lot better than spending the gloomy holiday here where the snow’s already found us for the year. Hell, it’s probably snowing there too. I much prefer my surroundings green instead of snow white, but at least a farm has horses. At least I think it does. Anything has to be better than this drab, little house of horrors. Too bad I can’t just go alone.

  It’s two days before Thanksgiving, and now she’s insisting that I come with her to upstate New York to spend “quality time” together. Ugh. As if. I have no desire to be anywhere in the vicinity of my sister and her husband if they think they’ve got a free pass for their ankle-biter. Don’t get me wrong. I love my niece. She’s sickeningly adorable with her little, blonde ringlets and cherub cheeks and all that cuteness overload, but I know what Aspen and Blake will do the minute someone else says they’ll watch her - they’ll be fucking like rabbits.

  It’s bad enough that I have to listen to them go at it every time Gwen takes a nap, but I know that they’re going to pawn Gwen off on Blake’s sister, Ashley, the moment they can. And they won’t surface from each other for at least an hour. Aspen has been complaining nonstop about how she misses being intimate with her husband and getting more action that a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am during Sesame Street.

  “Raven! If you roll your eyes any further back in that pretty, little head of yours, they’re going to get stuck that way.” I can hear her tapping her foot impatiently on the floor, which just adds fuel to the fire.

  My attention switches from the ceiling to my sister. Must she always be so damn condescending? I swear, she acts like my mother more than my sister. That’s when she even has time for me. Between Blake, Gwen, and her “stylist” job, I hardly ever see her anymore. Not since our mom died last year. She’s always too busy for me, and I’ve gotten used to being alone.

  And now, she’s gone and cleared her schedule for Thanksgiving and expects me to tag along on her little holiday to see her in-laws for a fun, family get away. Not possible for me since my family was ripped apart last year by a drunk driver. The part of it that mattered anyway. She flits around here like nothing’s changed and the truth of the matter is… everything’s changed. Plus, I think she’s just trying to pawn me off on Ms. Bianchi, so she doesn’t have to deal with me anymore. What better way to get rid of me without feeling guilty than to put me to work to earn my keep?

  Glaring at her, I snap, “If you don’t stop mother-henning me, my foot is going to get stuck in your ass.”

  Aspen recoils like I’ve slapped her. She recovers quickly, but not fast enough for me to miss the look of horror that flashes across her face. She clears her throat and levels her gaze at me. “Look Raven, nobody says you have to enjoy yourself, but you will go. And you’ll be respectful to Blake’s family. There’s no way in hell I’m leaving you here alone with your constant mood swings and blackouts. I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but you can stop with the bitchy attitude any time now. I assure you, we’re all quite over you stomping around here, acting like you’re the queen.”

  I cross my arms over my chest and take two steps into Aspen’s personal bubble. She tenses as I square my shoulders. Neither of us is particularly intimidating, but in my offensive stance, I’ve got the edge on Aspen’s defenses. “Just up and admit that you wish it’d been me. You wish mom’d driven instead of me. She probably could’ve avoided the crazy ass that hit us, but if she couldn’t, at least it’d have been me instead of her.”

  Aspen stands there with a stone-faced expression. She’s not taking the bait that I’m dangling in front of her, which is probably for the best. If she lies to me, I won’t take it well, and if she tells me the truth, I’ll probably take it worse. Of course, who’s to say what the truth even is anymore.

  I switch gears, laying into her stupid idea of a family vacation. “If you force me to go, I’ll kick and scream the whole way there. Despite you being three years older than me, you’re not my boss. You’re not my mother, and you never will be! She died and left us behind to pick up the pieces. I’m broken. Irreversibly so. So despite the fact that you can make me go, you better think long and damn hard about if you really want to.”

  Aspen sighs heavily and takes several steps away from me. She knows not to push when I’m in one of my mood swings. She shakes her head at me as she stands in the doorway to my bedroom. “I know this isn’t who you really are, Raven. I don’t know if this is some kind of defense mechanism or if you’re lashing out at me because you’re angry at the world, but I assure you that we’re on the same side of this fight. If you’d just listen to—”

  I roll my eyes again. Even I can admit it’s something I do more than most people. I’ve probably seen more of the backs of my eyelids this last year than I have of anything outdoors. But right now, I don’t want to listen to my sister’s attempts at sympathy. But she can’t offer the kind of sympathy I need. There’s no way she’ll ever understand what happened that night.

  She wasn’t there. She was off enjoying being a newlywed on a honeymoon halfway across the world. I’m the one who’s haunted by the sounds of tires screeching and glass shattering as a drunk idiot going the wrong way slammed into us from behind. The heart-stopping screams of my mom as the car I was driving flipped end over end, over the median, and into oncoming traffic. The deafening crunch of metal crumpling as we were struck by another vehicle that couldn’t stop in time to avoid us. Then, the eerie silence that followed. No, she doesn’t understand, and she never will.

  “Get out,” I snarl at her.

  Aspen’s shoulders drop, and her green eyes flicker with irritation. She won’t engage in my destructive behavior any further. She knows I’m done with this conversation, and that I’ll tune out any further efforts she may make at establishing a ceasefire in the battle of wills. She also knows she’ll get her way. I’ll come with her, but only because the state of New York and a stupid piece of paper says that she’s my guardian until I turn eighteen.

  Three more weeks of this living hell where reminders of my former life haunt me at every turn. Three more weeks of staring into the face of my sister and seeing my dead mother. Three more weeks until I can put the sweet, innocent, playful side of me to bed forever and walk out of this house with my held high as I say ‘Deuces!’

  I narrow my eyes at Aspen as she continues to stand in my doorway, a pitiful look of defeat marring up her pretty features. She and I are polar opposites in everything, all the way down to our appearance. Our coloring is like night and day. To be honest, I don’t know i
f we even have the same father, but it doesn’t matter now anyway.

  Aspen is stunning. Though we’re both fair-skinned, she actually gets outside once in awhile, so she’s worked up a bit of color. My skin is so white, the poor souls employed at this farm will probably need sunglasses just to stand near me. Aspen’s hair is honey-blonde and reaches her mid-back, mine is jet-black and lopped off at my chin. When my hair’s down, it appears to be a demure look, but when it’s pulled up, it becomes obvious from the hot-pink streaks and shaved underside that I’m no pretty princess. The one thing we do have in common is our mother’s green eyes - deep and piercing like the shade of summer grass I so desperately miss already.

  Here we are, like the night and the day battling for control. This battle’s going to end in a stalemate, just like it always does. One thing is certain though. Her sunshine attitude regarding this torturous trip is too much for me today. I grunt and grab a pillow from my bed, throwing it in her direction as I yell, “I said get out!”

  Aspen jumps back from the doorway as the pillow lands in the hallway beside her. She glances once more inside the room, then shakes her head in my direction. She turns away as I hear Gwen cry. I probably woke her up with my outburst, but right now… I simply don’t have the energy to care. I stomp to my door and slam it as I hard as I can, causing the pictures on the wall to rattle in defiance.

  Gwen’s crying picks up even more now. I can hear her baleful yelling through the door, and I wince as the edges of my vision go wavy. Shit. Not now. I haven’t accomplished anything at all, except to piss off the one person in this world who still loves me, despite my massive flaws. She may not like me, and that’s fine. I don’t need to be liked to survive. At least I know she loves me. That’s far more than hundreds of other lost, little girls, and she has my best interest at heart, even if she has a shitty way of letting me know.

  The waves ripple in my peripheral vision, and the the ground tilts beneath me. I’m not ready to let go and let the sleep take me, but I don’t have much say in the matter. Just like every other aspect of my life right now, I’m a servant to everyone and everything else. The sleep will find me, no matter how hard I try to avoid it, and when it comes, I’ll lose my grip over my reality again.

  I slap my hands on both sides of my head as the crippling headache roars through my brain. Stumbling towards the bed, I groan. There’s a very real chance I’m going to take a short fall to a long nap on the floor. Just one more humiliating twist in the soap opera that has become my life. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to go back to being a kid again. Just one more day of normal… one more day of sanity… one more day of innocent, blind trust in a world that fucked me over the first chance it got..

  TWO

  Hunter

  The wind whips through my hair as I ride Dallas at a near-breakneck speed across the open pasture. Now that Ashley’s practically imprisoned in her father’s penthouse apartment in NYC, poor Dallas doesn’t get out of her stall much. When Ashley does visit, she almost always rides her own horse, Fiona. Sure, I groom and feed all the horses daily, and let them out into fenced-in pasture for some exercise, but horses are made to run. And though Dallas is an obedient horse, she loves to run free whenever she can.

  I pull up on her bridle as we crest a hill. She snorts in protest, but slows to a canter before stopping. Stomping at the wildflowers underneath her hooves, Dallas glances back at me. Her enormous, soft brown eyes are pleading with me to let her run some more. I chuckle and lean forward in my saddle, patting her neck. I whisper fondly in her ear, “Come on, girl. Once more to the pond, then I have to go see a lady about some dinner.”

  She snorts again and paws at a daisy that’s half-bent from being stepped on. I can’t help but chuckle to myself as she nickers at me, then turns around. I grip the reins tightly in my hands, because I know that she’s about to let loose and run full-out all the way to the pond. Dallas isn’t a bucker, but if you get her excited enough, she’ll toss almost any rider who isn’t prepared.

  It takes Dallas mere minutes to thunder across the pasture. She barely bothers to slow down as she turns at the pond and heads back for the barn, before I can attempt to slow her down. I’m still not sure she’s going to slow down as she barrels for the wooden structure. I tug back on her reins and she yanks back, whipping her head back and forth.

  I squeeze my knees into her ribs, urging her to slow down. She snorts again in protest, but to my relief, she does slow her speed to a trot as we make our final approach to the barn. She prances like she’s putting on a show as the Anatolian puppies stumble out of the dog barn behind their mother, Duchess. They’re tiny compared to what they’ll be in the near future, but they’re young still. Not even quite old enough to be off the tit.

  They scramble out of the way as Dallas stomps along. I adjust myself in the saddle and throw my right leg off, over Dallas’s rump. Her tail swishes playfully as I jump to the ground and gather the reins up in one of my hands. I wipe my forehead off with the other. Despite Dallas doing most of the work, riding a horse like she wanted to be ridden takes a lot out of a man. It’s almost as exhausting as riding a woman, but the payoff is better when you’re between a woman’s legs instead of on a horse’s back.

  I shake my head at my stupid joke and tug on the reins, leading Dallas into the barn. I pull her over to a trough of lukewarm water and let her take a couple sips. “Atta girl. Wet your whistle without gushing your gut.” I drop Dallas’s reins and walk cautiously to the closed stall at the far end of the barn.

  The mare that’s inside the stall snorts, then stamps the ground. I approach as quietly as possible, but the black horse’s ear flicks in the air. Despite my nearly silent footfalls, there’s nothing I can do to disguise my scent from her. And boy does she not like me. She liked my sister even less, but she bucked Poppy hard enough that she went flying. When she landed on the ground, the force was enough to break Poppy’s collarbone.

  Ms. Rogers didn’t fire Poppy over it, but she suggested that Poppy go back home to Jersey to heal. Poppy wasn’t thrilled about it, but truth be told, she had some business to take care of back home anyway. I suspect once she’s all healed up, she’ll be back. And she’ll have it out for the unbroken mare that’s as wild as they come. I refuse to even attempt to break her.

  The horse looks at me, and for a moment, I swear her eyes glow red. With her solid black coat and demon attitude, I wouldn’t be surprised if the damn mare is possessed. An exorcism might do her good. For now, she gets even less time out of the barn than Dallas and Fiona. I let Liberty out because I have to, but there’s no way on Earth my ass is going anywhere near that horse’s back. She’s dangerous, and I like my job at Bianchi Ranch.

  Besides, taking care of the horses is just one very small part of my job as a ranch hand. Normally, I’m out keeping sight of the alpacas as they graze. Yeah, I said alpacas. They’re really good herd animals. They stick together well, and just a couple Anatolians can keep them in line. They’re well-protected from predators, too. That’s not saying we haven’t lost a couple here and there, but the herd works well with the land. And there’s a surprisingly large market for alpaca wool.

  Shaking my head at Liberty, I dump some feed into her trough, along with a carrot to entice her to be nice. It won’t work, but at least I can say I’m trying. Now, Dallas I like. That horse and I have an understanding. She obeys me better than any other person on this planet… well, except for her owner. Ashley Rogers can command that horse like a feisty, blonde Napoleon. Then again, Ashley could probably make Liberty obey, too. She is not a woman to take anyone’s shit. I hope I can find a woman like that someday, or at least one that won’t take my bullshit. I can be a real jerk-off sometimes, and I need a woman that’s not afraid to knock me down a peg or two to put me in my place.

  I walk back over to Dallas and dig into my pocket. Dallas’s head pops up from the water trough as she hears me approaching her, and she walks over slowly, her ears flicking back and forth. I nod and ho
ld my hand out to her. She whinnies softly, then licks the sugar cube off my palm, noisily crunching it between her enormous teeth. She nickers and swishes her tail as I grab her brush and start to run it over her sides.

  The sharp squeal of a tiny human being catches my attention as I’m finishing up with after-ride care on Dallas. I snag a carrot from my bag and trot over to Fiona’s stall and drop it over the gate into her feeding trough. She whinnies in appreciation and crunches into it as I turn toward the double doors that lead outside.

  A screeching ball of blonde ringlets and dirt whizzes past me into the barn with half a dozen Anatolian puppies hot on her heels, yapping excitedly as Hurricane Gwen blows through. The kid’s adorable, and Ashley did mention something about her brother and his family coming to town for Thanksgiving. I wanted to go home to visit Poppy, but she assured me that I was needed here on the ranch, and that she’d go to our parents’ house and explain that I couldn’t afford to get away and make the four-hour drive.

  The truth of the matter is, Ms. Bianchi has asked me to stay here through the holidays to train a couple of new ranch hands. With Poppy back home and the addition of seven miniature horses to the animal lineup at the ranch, there’s no way I’ll be able to take care of things on my own. I mean, I’m good, but nobody’s that good. Even with the new Anatolians hitting the herd in a few weeks, I’ll still be grossly outnumbered - over a hundred animals to one.