by Cara Wylde
They moved in the same rhythm, their lovemaking hard and fast, their eyes locked. It wasn’t long before he came inside her and her body shuddered under his, her lips parting to release a long moan and whisper his name as the powerful orgasm took over her senses and turned her brain to mush.
Slowly, they came back to their senses and Hunter rolled to one side, moving onto his back and positioning Nieve on top of him.
“I’m so happy right now,” she said.
Her cheek was pressed against his chest, and she was listening to his heartbeat as her fingers were tracing small circles around his left nipple. She could feel the sticky mess between her thighs, the evidence of their union, and the thought that they were now joined for life sent a thrill through her bones.
“But can it last?” Nieve asked in a quiet voice. Everything was perfect now, and she was grateful for it, but the truth was that things could still go wrong.
“Yes,” Hunter said. “Yes, it can. I will never let you be unhappy again.”
There was a determination in his voice that reassured Nieve.
“Oh, Hunter…”
She stretched up and kissed him, and he pulled her close, holding her in his strong arms.
“But what about my stepmother? Surely, she has more people out looking for me.”
“As long as we go away and never come back, I don’t think she will care very much about you.”
“And my father?”
Hunter let out a long sigh. “I’m afraid your stepmother is a very powerful witch,” he said. “He fell under her spell a long time ago, and there is nothing anyone can do for him.”
“No.” Tears ran down her face. “I guess I have to learn to accept that.”
Hunter nodded and held her tightly. There was nothing more he could do for her.
“And what about Margaret and her children?” she asked. The more she thought about it, the more complicated things seemed.
“Margaret and the boys will come with us. I’ve already talked to her, and she agreed. It’s the best option we have. There is nothing for them here, and we can all start a new life far away. Together, we’re stronger. We’ll make it.” His bear felt her fear and uncertainty, and he looked down into her eyes. “It will be a great adventure for you,” Hunter continued. “I know a place where we can be safe, and it won’t be easy at first, but if we work hard, we can build a life there.”
“I’ve never…” She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say. Worked a day in her life? It felt so silly to bring that up.
But Hunter knew. She didn’t have to finish her sentence.
“I will take care of you,” he reassured her. “The place I’m telling you about is where Margaret and I grew up. Sometimes, I think we should have never left.”
“But then… we would have never met…”
“That’s true, my Princess,” he smiled. “And meeting you has made everything I’ve had to do worthwhile.”
He leaned down and their lips met.
THE END
BEARLY CURSED
A retelling of East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Girls my age usually spend their days dancing, singing, and dreaming of Prince Charming. Not me. I spend my days hunting and praying my poor parents and my dear sisters survive another harsh winter.
I never expected to find the solution to all my problems in the cave of the white bear I was hunting. My parents will never starve again, and my sisters will get to live that life of dancing and singing, but there’s a catch: I must become the wild beast’s wife. Giving up my freedom, accepting I’ll never feel the warm touch of a man… it’s all worth it for my family’s happiness. So, I let the beast lock me up in its icy castle, and I get ready for a life of boredom and sacrifice. However, when my first night in the white bear’s home turns into a passionate encounter with a mysterious stranger, I understand my life will be anything but boring.
CHAPTER ONE
My grandmother had always told me to choose with my heart. No matter how dire the situation, how great the risks, my heart would always find a way. The right way. And, most importantly, she had told me to listen to it when others would tell me otherwise. And they did tell me otherwise. All the time. My mother would tell me I was old enough to go find a job in town and work day in and day out to bring in some measly coins. But then, who would hunt and put food on the table? Certainly not my father, whose crippled legs barely allowed him to move around our cottage and feed the four chickens that were generous enough to lay eggs from time to time. Winter was coming, and that year you could feel it in your bones that it would be a harsh one. My two elder sisters worked for a cloth merchant in town. They woke up at the break of dawn, ate a piece of dry bread, then went down to town, where they spun yarn until late in the evening. The few coins they brought home at the end of the week went in a jar, along with the coins my mother earned by doing wealthy people’s laundry. We had to buy firewood for winter. Yes, my grandmother had told me to choose with my heart, but she hadn’t told me what to do when I had nothing to choose from.
Fall in the Northern Islands was a wild season. It was past midnight, and I was staring at the huddled figures of my sisters, who were shivering in their sleep, under a thin, battered blanket. It was raining so heavily and the wind was blowing so hard that the walls of the cottage shook. I couldn’t sleep. I was feverishly waiting for the first sunray because I had something to do. For five days I had been trying to track down the huge white bear I had seen by the frozen lake, and I had a feeling the next day would be my lucky day. I wouldn’t find any joy in killing the beautiful, majestic animal, but the bear’s skin would make a good blanket for my sisters, and its meat would last us for months if we preserved it right. Listening to the howling storm outside, I turned on the other side and reached for my bow. The cold wood felt right under my fingertips. It comforted me. Yes, the next day I would track down the white bear and sacrifice it to the dreadful gods of winter, hoping they would spare us once more.
***
The sharp wind played with the dark strands that had escaped my long braid. The fox wrap on my shoulders was the warmest piece of clothing I had, and it did its job well. Although old and scratched, my boots could still last a couple more winters, so I could roam the woods for hours in search of my prey. With the wooden bow in my hand and twelve arrows in my back quiver, I walked along the frozen lake, farther than I had ever gone in the 20 years I had spent on these cold, hostile lands. The sun was quickly moving up to the middle of the sky, and my stomach rumbled in protest. I had a small loaf of bread with me, but I was determined to eat only after I had put down the white bear.
It was past noon and it felt like I had been walking forever when I finally spotted it. There it was, coming out of the forest, without a care in the world, probably to fish in the lake. It sensed my presence too late. I had already placed an arrow in my bow and aimed at its huge, thick neck. The white bear turned to dash back between the trees and the arrow sunk into its shoulder. That was all I needed. Now it would bleed all the way back to its lair and it would be child’s play to find it. Placing a new arrow in my bow, I started following the red trail carefully, my senses sharp and my mind alert, just in case any predator in these unexplored parts of the forest decided to take me by surprise. I was the hunter, but I wasn’t foolish enough to believe there weren’t creatures out there faster and more intelligent than me. Hell, if I were as superstitious as my mother and my elder sisters, I would have also brought some of their strange, nasty-smelling herbs to protect me from evil. There were legends about the woods beyond the frozen lake being the shelter of witches and trolls. But I did not believe in such nonsense. All I believed in was my bow and arrows.
The drops of blood on the ground and the occasional smears on the tree trunks led me closer and closer to the foot of the mountain. When I reached the wide entrance of a cave, I decided to rest for a minute and consider my current situation. Now I knew where the white bear hid when it wasn’t out roaming thr
ough the woods. I had two options: set camp outside, somewhere strategic, and wait for the animal to emerge from the cave so I could send my arrows its way, or enter the cave, pray to all gods it wasn’t one of those big ones, with thousands of galleries, and kill the bear while it was hurt and disoriented. I moved from one foot to the other, trying to keep the blood flowing and my body heat to a level that didn’t remind me of death.
“What shall I do? What shall I do?” I whispered my question to the mighty mountain towering over me. “If I stay here, hell knows how long I’ll have to wait. I don’t necessarily fancy spending the night out in this bloody weather. If I go in, will I be fast enough to put the beast down before it lunges at me?”
It was a matter of life and death. “Choose with your heart” my grandma used to say.
“Sheesh! Who am I kidding? It is a matter of death and death. If I go in and I fail, I die. If I stay out and wait, I’ll probably die frozen. If I go back home empty handed, we’ll all die of cold or hunger, whichever gets us first. A matter of death, death, and… oh right! Death. I’m going in.”
With a one last glance at the tall trees and the rocky mountain, I stepped inside the dark cavern. I would emerge victorious, or not emerge at all. Whatever fate was waiting for me inside, I was ready to face it.
I walked slowly, my steps as light as a touch of feathers, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. I made sure to study every crevice in the cave walls, every bump in the rocky floor, and every narrow gallery where a huge white bear could not fit, least anything would take me by surprise. I was an experienced, calculated hunter. I thought I had a fair chance to succeed.
But no matter how prepared I was, what I found in the main gallery still blew my mind and turned me into a blubbering mess.
“What is this? It can’t be… How?”
There were piles and piles of gold. The round, shiny coins stretched to the back wall of the gallery, then rose towards the ceiling, where they caught the flickering sunrays which managed to make their way through almost invisible cracks. I lowered my bow, with the arrow still in its string, and narrowed my eyes in an attempt to see better and farther. It seemed like I had stumbled into a dragon’s lair, except dragons didn’t exist. I took a couple more steps and stopped again when my boot sunk into a small heap of coins, making a jingling sound.
“I’ll be damned…”
For a moment, I forgot why I was here, which wasn’t such a big deal since I didn’t need to kill the white bear anymore. All I had to do was stuff my pockets with as many gold coins as I could carry and get out of the cave. I wasn’t a greedy person, so I had no intention of coming back here after saving my family from poverty. One handful of coins would have bought us a decent living.
Just as I set the bow down so I could dig in the pile with both hands, I heard a low grumble coming from behind me. In a swift motion, I grabbed my bow, put the arrow back in the string, and turned around to face the white bear that had trapped me inside. I cursed myself for being so stupid. There was no other way out except for the entrance the huge animal was currently blocking, so my only chance was to shoot arrow after arrow, as fast as possible, and put it down before it cornered me and tore my body to pieces.
I stared the beast in the eyes, and my bow arm trembled. I couldn’t release the arrow. Why couldn’t I release the arrow?
“Focus, Brenda… Focus…”
I tensed my arm and pulled firmly at the string. Beads of sweat were gathering on my forehead, and they would soon fall onto my lashes if I didn’t shoot right away. The white bear hadn’t moved a muscle. It was studying me intently, its deep black eyes taking me in from head to toe. What was it doing? Why wasn’t it trying to attack? The arrow I had shot at it by the lake was sticking out of its shoulder. On that side of its body, the snow white fur was covered in blood. We looked in each other’s eyes for long minutes. My arms were getting tired, and my aim was losing its precision, but I still couldn’t find it in me to shoot.
“Get out of my way.” What was I thinking? I must have gone insane. I was talking to a bear now. “Just back off, leave the cave, and I will spare your life.” The bear simply tilted its big head, as if it was trying to understand what I was saying. Wonderful! It didn’t seem like it wanted to hurt me, which made it even more difficult to keep threating it with my arrows. But if I wanted to get out alive, I had to kill it. Why was I acting like a fool? It was an animal. It couldn’t understand me, and I certainly couldn’t negotiate with it. It was probably just trying to figure out if it was hungry now or if it should keep me for dinner. I tightened my grip on the bow. “I’m going to shoot now.”
“Wait! Don’t kill me, I have a bargain for you!”
My eyes went wide with shock. The arrow sizzled through the air and hit the cave wall, inches from the white bear’s head.
CHAPTER TWO
“That was close.”
Who said that? I dropped the bow and my hands went to my sweaty temples. That voice… in my head… it was strange and foreign. The bear took a step forward, and I took a step back.
“You hurt me quite badly back there in the forest. Why would you do that? I never hurt a human in my life!”
My mouth opened and closed a couple of times. It was like I didn’t have control over my body anymore. It had gone into shock, and it wouldn’t listen to my commands. I wanted to demand an explanation. No, that would’ve been stupid. I wanted to grab my bow and run for my life. I was probably hallucinating because I hadn’t drunk or eaten anything since early morning. Yes, that had to be it.
“And now you want to steal my treasure…”
The bear took a couple more steps towards me, and soon I had nowhere else to go. My boots sunk deep into the pile of gold, and if I wasn’t careful, I could easily slip to the floor and be at the beast’s mercy.
“You don’t look like a bad person.”
The bear narrowed its eyes. So, maybe I wasn’t hallucinating? The creature seemed to communicate not only telepathically, its thoughts invading mine like there was no barrier between our minds, but also through body language.
“Although… those innocent blue eyes of yours might as well lie. What do I know? I haven’t been around humans a lot.”
My hands dropped, hanging awkwardly to my sides. Clearly, this wasn’t my imagination. The creature was talking to me. In a very friendly manner, if I were to be completely honest.
“You can talk,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
“Don’t be foolish. I can’t talk. Do you see my lips move?”
I blinked in confusion.
“I think, my beautiful stranger. I think and I send my thoughts straight to your mind. A useful little trick, don’t you agree?”
I smiled dumbly. What else could I do or say? I wasn’t afraid anymore, and even if I were, at this point there was no way I could protect myself or run away. I was pretty much in over my head.
“What a lovely smile you have! Which reminds me of the bargain I mentioned earlier.”
“The bargain, yes. What is it?” Might as well go along with it, I figured.
The white bear put some distance between us so it could tilt its head to the huge pile of gold behind me.
“You don’t strike me as a thief, so I have a feeling you need my gold for your family. I am willing to let you take as much as you want, but on one condition.”
“What?” It was surreal, but it didn’t hurt to play along.
“After you give the gold to your family and make sure they have everything they need to start a new, prosperous life, you have to come back here and live with me as my wife.”
“You must be joking!” I started laughing, and the wide cavern caught the sound and turned it into a never-ending echo. “You’re joking, right?”
“Absolutely not. Think about it: your family will be as rich as they are now poor, and it will all be thanks to you. All you need to do is promise me you will come back and take me as your husband.”
The laughter died
on my lips, although it was still traveling down the galleries. “But I can’t… I can’t live in the wilderness with a… bear.” The idea sounded even more absurd when I spoke it out loud.
“You won’t live in the wilderness. Well, all right, you will in a way, because we’re very far from civilization, but you won’t be alone. This mountain is so much more than you can see from the outside. Marry me, and you’ll have everything your heart desires: exotic foods, velvet gowns, silks to wrap yourself in, the finest pieces of jewelry, servants and maids to tend to your every need. And, most importantly, you will know your parents and siblings will never have to work another day in their life.”
“Just that… I’ll have to move here, with you, and spend my life in a luxurious… mountain?” My eyes scanned the cave walls and the ceiling. It certainly looked like a normal, uninteresting mountain.
“And keep me company during the day. Have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with me, and read to me by the fire in the evening. That’s all.”
I crossed my arms over my generous chest. It sounded insane. What was this creature, anyway? Was it really just a white bear with fancy interests? Was it in any way human? Maybe it was an enchanted bear. A witch cursed it with some semblance of human consciousness so he would know how it was like to have human wants and needs and never be able to satisfy them. I looked at the gold coins around me and remembered my sisters’ gaunt faces and sickly thin bodies. With a single gold coin they could buy food to last them all winter. Instead of buying firewood, they could burn down the cottage and buy a big house in town. For all this to become real, all I had to do was agree to spend my life here, at the end of the world, in the heart of a cold mountain, with a white bear as my husband.
“Deal.”