As Rose Red reflected, the dwarf scrabbled about in the surf, apparently searching for something. While he occupied himself, Rose Red shifted her weight from one foot to the other, thinking. No, now that she thought about it, she no longer resented the fact that she’d missed out on marrying Colm. What she resented, truly, was the manner in which the dwarf ruined her chances of marrying anyone else from her village.
She cast her gaze toward the distant horizon, to the strange and foreign lands before her. Perhaps there would be another chance to find her future.
Mama would miss me, to be sure. But she’s still young and in good health, and she’s got the help of the servants. There’s nothing tying me to the village anymore. I’ll help Snow White deliver her child. But after her confinement ends, I do believe I’ll strike out on my own, explore this vast world of which I know so little. It’s time.
When the dwarf found the item he’d been searching for, he gave a cry of joy and yanked a dripping wet bag out of the sand. It clunked as he hoisted it over his shoulder. Rose Red started at the sight of the bag. “You’ve got gems in there, don’t you?”
The dwarf bristled. “What’s it to you, you little bitch?”
“Oh, nothing, you vicious little man,” she shot back good-naturedly. The dwarf’s power over her was extinguished, so he no longer occupied her fears and thoughts. She didn’t even mind his acerbic tongue. He meant nothing to her, nothing. “Only curious, that’s all.”
The dwarf stared at her from dark, slitted eyes. “You saw inside my bag. You nosed around in something that didn’t belong to you, something that wasn’t any of your business, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t,” she said, her voice tinged with irony. “You thoughtlessly left your bag open one day in the woods. I saw one of your gems.”
He shook his head with a sudden anger, his eyes glittering with malice. “No, you stole one of my gems. Now I know where that ruby danced off to. You stole it.”
Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how vulnerable and alone she was. She licked her dry lips and cast her gaze around, seeing nobody. She started backing up the beach toward Black Beauty. “No, I didn’t. I found it lying on the ground. You left it there.”
What an unexpected, ugly twist. She hadn’t expected the dwarf to turn on her like this. But she did know better and ought to have kept her guard up.
“Vicious little bitch,” the dwarf hissed, drawing a long knife from his jacket. “You vicious, stealing, thieving little bitch.”
“I saved your life!”
“You didn’t know that you saved my life. And you remarked on it yourself. If you’d known that it was me, you’d have left me to die.”
Rose Red exclaimed, “I can’t believe you’re doing this. You’re going to kill me over something as trifling as a bauble?”
“Trust me,” the dwarf said, leering, “I’ve done far worse for less.”
She shook her head with dismay. It was hopeless to reason with him. She kicked sand into his face and whirled around to flee up the beachhead toward Black Beauty. If she could only reach her horse in time—
“Aaah!” she cried as a sting burned across her ankle.
“You thieving little whore!” the dwarf screamed, brandishing a bloodstained knife.
She kicked him hard in the knee. He swore as he dropped the knife into the sand. She used this last moment to her advantage, staggering up the beach to Black Beauty. The gentle mare, distressed by the cries of her mistress, reared up on her hind legs and whinnied in terror.
Rose Red grabbed hold of the reins and clutched them as the horse shied away from her. “Oh, please stop, Black Beauty!”
She stumbled on a rock and fell.
“Ah, hah!” the dwarf cried, triumphant, wielding the knife in the air. He swung at her neck, but she dove out of the way just in time. The knife rasped past her throat. She swung her legs around and kicked the dwarf in the groin. He dropped the knife into the sand and doubled over, howling in agony. She kicked him again, this time in the head, and he rolled over face-first into the sand. She gazed wildly at Black Beauty, but the horse, terrified and beyond control, reared up again, whinnying. Rose Red lunged for the reins, grabbed them, scrambled to her feet and ran toward the highway, pulling Black Beauty behind her.
“If I can just make it to the road—”
On the other side of the highway stood deep woods. And did her eyes betray her? Was it playing tricks with her? The woods rustled as if someone deep inside the woods fought to escape from the thick underbrush. She blinked through the sweat dripping into her eyes. The vision shimmered and then grew clear.
As Black Beauty whinnied in terror, an enormous black bear emerged from the woods and galloped straight toward her.
Black Beauty jerked the reins from Rose Red’s fingers and cantered down the highway as the bear closed in on Rose Red. “Oh, please, dear God. Spare me, spare me!” Rose Red cried, sinking to her knees and bowing her head.
The bear roared toward her. He growled menacingly, and her heart thudded dully in her chest. He drew close, so close, nearly upon her.
She would die, after all, caught between the bear and the dwarf in this strange land.
Rose Red and Black Bear: Chapter 18
The dwarf stood over her, gesticulating wildly at the bear. “Finish her off! Go on, finish her off, you big, slathering brute!”
In that moment, with her ankle bleeding, with sand in her face, her hair, and her nose, she knew she would die within the next few seconds, and badly at that. With a sickening lurch in the pit of her belly, she realized that this worst moment of her life would prove to be the last moment of her life. In a cold, hard part of her soul, she knew there remained literally nothing she could do to save herself.
This is it. It’s all over.
In that moment, she accepted that she would never again see her sister, her mother, her homeland. She would never again see her red rosebush bloom in the springtime, and she would never see her sister’s child. She would never again awaken to the sensation of the sun streaming through her open casement window. Her miserable, short, unhappy life was over. Well, so be it. She curled up into the fetal position, tucked her head against her knees, closed her eyes and prayed. “Dear Father in heaven.”
The bear’s hot, molten breath warmed her neck. It embraced her with an eerily soothing sensation, like a lover’s caress. Then the bear growled, a low, guttural rumbling sound. In the next moment, her neck grew cool and she stirred faintly.
“What the hell are you doing?” the dwarf shrieked. “She’s the one you want, not me!”
Rose Red lifted her head. “What?”
“Stop!” the dwarf screeched. “Stop it, you stupid bastard!”
Rose Red forced herself to look up. What she saw surprised her to the core. The bear lunged for the dwarf, his jaws clamping down on the dwarf’s midsection. Blood trickled down the bear’s mouth as his razor-sharp teeth dug into the dwarf’s soft belly. The dwarf screamed in agony and dug his knife into the bear’s right shoulder. Blood seeped from the wound, running down the bear’s back and matting his fur. The bear ignored his injury, calmly carrying the dwarf away in his massive jaws as if the dwarf comprised no more consequence than a rag doll. As the dwarf roiled and thrashed about, the bear trotted a little ways away from Rose Red, his back to her, until he reached a grassy spot. He released the dwarf, who fell to the ground, panting and retching. Then the bear bent his neck down and gently enfolded his jaws around the dwarf’s head.
He doesn’t want me to see what’s about to happen. He’s protecting me.
Rose Red eased out of her fetal position and scrabbled to her feet. She knew this bear! She knew him!
With a surge of relief, and a sudden realization of the dwarf’s fate, she shut her eyes. But she could not stop her ears, and so she heard the last, agonizing cries of the dwarf as the bear clamped his massive jaws on the dwarf’s skull, cracking it open with a sickening squelching sound. The dwarf—that evi
l, malignant dwarf—was dead.
A silence permeated the air. All the birds in the woods fell still. Rose Red forced her eyes to open. She must see, she simply must see, be a witness. There, lying crumpled on the grass, lay the dwarf’s shattered body, his lifeblood streaming from his broken head, staining the grass blades a dark shade of red. The bear snuffled at the dwarf’s remains, then slowly raised himself onto his back legs. He stood like a human being, erect, powerful, tall. In the next moment he started to convulse. Then a strange shimmering sound rose from his body, as if a force was fighting its way out of him, struggling to break free. He reared his head and moaned, his body shaking. He staggered away from the dwarf before crumpling to the ground.
Rose Red ran to his side. “Black Bear, Black Bear. Don’t die, don’t die on me!”
Black Bear gazed up at Rose Red with blood-rimmed eyes. “Alas, I cannot help it, my fair lass.”
Rose Red, Rose Red, would you have your suitor dead?
Tears stung her eyes. “Don’t leave me!”
Black Bear groaned, and in that moment she heard the ominous death rattle. She’d heard it many a time as a girl, tending to the cattle. She recognized the sound and her heart shuddered. “No!”
“I can’t help it, Rose Red,” he whispered, turning his head to the ground. He closed his eyes and fell still.
“The knife, the knife!” she grabbed hold of the blade that pierced Black Bear’s right shoulder, and with both hands squeezed around the hilt, yanked the knife from his body. But Black Bear remained as silent, as still, as death.
A sob escaped from her lips and she buried her face in his soft fur, weeping. “How many nights did you lie by the hearth and remonstrate with me when I grew too rough with you? How many nights did I torment you, playing with you, and how you withstood it all, my good Black Bear? How you indulged me in my childish fantasies. Ever so kind, ever so good to me, and now you are gone, gone to me. How could you let this happen, my dear Black Bear?”
Her tears dropped onto the black fur matted with gore and blood. As her tears mixed in with his blood, it formed a new substance, which congealed and absorbed into his skin. Rose Red threw her arms across Black Bear’s chest and sobbed brokenly. She sobbed for him, and she sobbed for her loss, her tears drenching his fur.
But then a curious thing happened.
Black Bear’s shoulders heaved, and his body beneath her embrace roiled, as if something moved below his pelt, struggling to escape. Forgetting her sorrow, Rose Red sat back on her haunches and watched in wonder as Black Bear’s frame shifted and lurched. His bones crunched and ground together, then snapped apart with a gruesome crack. She jumped to her feet, screaming in terror. Black Bear’s body, a shattered mass of fur, blood, and gore, grew still.
A sob escaped her throat. Here she was, alone on a deserted beach. Her beloved Black Bear was gone, gone forever. At the last, he’d been her true Black Bear. He had saved her life, but she could not save his. She barked out a bitter laugh. She thought she’d known loneliness. She thought she’d known sorrow. But she hadn’t, no, not at all. She hadn’t known, until this moment, what it felt like to lose a lover in her deepest heart, someone who spoke in her innermost dreams.
She closed her eyes and bowed her head. She uttered a soft prayer for Black Bear, then, lost in her sorrow, she cast her gaze across the horizon. There, standing just on the other side of the high road, was Black Beauty. The mare hadn’t run away after all! “There you are,” she whispered softly, tears filling her eyes.
“Aye,” a masculine voice said. “Here I am.”
She jumped as if bitten. She looked around her, and then her awestruck gaze fell on the broken form of the dead bear lying at her feet. “What?”
A hand, a pale, white hand, emerged from under Black Bear’s paw.
Rose Red and Black Bear: Chapter 19
Rose Red stepped back, terror rising in her throat.
From under the shattered remains of the bear’s pelt, a powerfully built, nude man emerged, his body covered with clots of blood and gore. He appeared to be wrenching himself from Black Bear’s body, as if the hide of the dead animal could not—would not—easily give him up.
At last, the young man freed himself from the matted black fur, and stood before her in his resplendence. He was a beautiful man, with broad, well-muscled shoulders, a rippled torso, sinewy legs and muscular arms, his fingers long and tapered, and his manhood—well, Rose Red blushed and turned her head away—but his manhood, magnificent. A hot flush of desire licked her loins. It was a sensation not at all unfamiliar to her, but one that had caused her great distress and heartache. In the past, such desire undid her, shamed her, and brought her anguish. But nobody from her village stood here now to punish her or ostracize her. She was fully free to admire him, for she did admire him, her beautiful Black Bear. Or was he really?
“I know what you are thinking,” he spoke softly.
She gasped. “Do you?”
He smiled. “A little. You do not realize it, my love, but while in my ursine form, I possessed the power of sensing people’s thoughts, especially yours.” And here he indicated the crumpled remains of the bear hide that used to contain him.
She fell to her knees before him. “How can this be? My beloved Black Bear died.”
“I am your Black Bear still.” He knelt down and embraced her. She trembled as his powerful arms wrapped around her waist, drawing her close to him. She ran her fingers through his hair, soft, black and thick, like the luxuriant fur that used to cover his entire body. His hair was his only lasting connection to the dead animal crumpled on the ground before him, that, and the pubic hair surrounding his erect cock. It too felt luxuriant, rich and black as he pressed against her.
“It’s you,” she said simply.
“Aye.” He placed his mouth against hers and kissed her deeply.
As Black Bear laid her on the fragrant green grass and stretched himself out beside her, a wellspring of love and contentment washed over her. She’d never before felt so protected, so loved, as she gazed into his deep brown eyes. “I’ve longed for you. For ever so long, I’ve longed for you.”
“As I longed for you.”
Tenderly, he eased himself over her and gently spread her legs apart with his powerful thighs. Desire rose inside her as he pulled her skirt to her waist, revealing her downy soft legs.
“I remember that night,” he whispered, “when you longed for me in your bed.”
She gazed at him in amazement. “You do?”
“Yes. In my ursine form I sensed your thoughts, so strong, so powerful!”
“You could feel me?”
“Yes, even when I could not be near you, I felt you. On that night, I saw my image of me entering your mother’s house, climbing the stairs, and slipping between the covers of that soft bed. I remember the feelings, the sensations, of making love to you.”
“Oh,” she murmured.
His eyes widened as he took in the measure of her, her downy thatch, her milky-white thighs. He growled with desire, his cock engorged.
She whispered, “I want you inside me.”
“As ever in my dreams,” he whispered, easing himself inside her. He gazed down at her as his throbbing cock filled her up, filling her until he could fill her up no more. He rocked his hips forward and back, his hips fused to hers, thrusting, pulling out, then thrusting in again. She moved her hips with his, rolling, rocking, pulling him inside her, absorbing the weight of his chest on hers, his presence deep inside her, his deep brown eyes gazing into hers.
A tickling sensation rose inside her, a tiny fluttering feeling, as he pushed his cock deep inside her and there, there, at that exquisite moment, awoke the flowering bud of her orgasm. Her orgasm reverberated up and down her cunt as his cock pressed up against her. She threw her head back and cried out with the exquisite agony of it, as all her longing and desire crashed down around her in a crescendo of bliss released.
Then Black Bear, the beautiful young man
, pounded his cock deep inside her, sending his seed into her nurturing womb. He shuddered one final time and fell quiescent.
At last, he withdrew from her body. A sorrow filled her heart when he pulled himself away from her, expressing itself in her womanly tears.
Black Bear drew her to him, holding her close, murmuring soothing words into her ear. “Do you remember, my lovely Rose Red, what I used to say to you, back in the day, back when you were a young girl?”
Her eyes full of tears, she nodded. “Aye. Rose Red, Rose Red, would you have your suitor dead?”
He stroked her cheek. “That evil dwarf put me under a spell and stole my life, my gems, my position as the prince of one of my own counties in my father’s kingdom. And now you, dear Rose Red, you saved me.”
A sudden thought darted into her consciousness. “You are the missing prince! Prince Caspian, the son whom King Stephen searched for all these years!”
Black Bear’s eyes shone with tears. “Yes, I’ve been separated from my father for four years, four long years of being trapped in that ursine form.” His eyes warmed as he gazed at her. “Yet for that one winter, when you, your mother and your dear sister saved my life—”
She framed his face with her hands. “You saved my life right back.”
“Yes,” he nodded. “But you saved me first.”
“I shall be required to concede the point.”
They gazed at each other for a long moment, and then he cocked his head with a curious expression. “What brought you so far from your home?”
“I traveled here to help my sister deliver her child.”
“Ah, the lovely Snow White.”
“She married Paul Rumsfeld.”
“His villa is not far from here,” Black Bear said. “Shall I take you there to see her?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “But we need to find suitable garments for you to wear. You can’t go there attired as you are now.”
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