“Regardless, the decision has been made for you and saved you from a mistake. Snow is dead.” Her sharp tone lacks emotion, slicing at my heart.
The words circle in my mind, and I fight to make sense of them. It takes everything I have in me to push the word over my lips. “Dead?”
She nods. “One of the huntsmen out killing wolves found her at the entrance of the haunted woods.”
I shake my head as the words continue to swirl in a massive jumble in my head. An ache fills my heart, weighing it down so much that it plunges to my stomach. The thought of her death guts me to my core, and I lurch over as if someone punched me. “But how? Was she attacked? Where is she now? I must still go to her. I must say goodbye.” I clutch her shoulders and lock onto her eyes. They sparkle as if they're happy where sadness should be. I jerk back from her. “What did you do?”
Hitching a shoulder, she glares at the accusation. “Me? Why on earth would you think it was me? She's the one who made the decision to leave you.”
I inch closer to her. “Because I know you had something to do with Marcus and Hestor. I don't doubt you did something to father or to Snow. I've seen with my own eyes how you've destroyed this once prosperous kingdom.”
“Leave it be, Darien. What I've done, and continue to do, is for our well-being. Do not test me.” Her stern eyes advise the conversation is over.
“Where is she?” I demand.
Mother hikes her dress as she stomps to the far corner of the wall. Whipping her head over her shoulder, she narrows her eyes. “Right here.” She slams a palm against a stone in the wall. It scrapes against its sister stones as it retracts and opens a hidden room even I didn't know of.
Inside the dim room, moonlight filters in through a ceiling hole, its beam pointing to the glass coffin that holds Snow's lifeless body.
“Why? Why did you do this?” I scream at my mother, yet refuse to look in her deceitful eyes. I focus on Snow, her smile as beautiful in death as it was in life. She lays as if she were a doll, merely sleeping.
“She is my prize. I've worked far too long to get where I am to be stopped once again by Ella. Even if it's in the form of her daughter.” Mother sidles next to me and folds her arms.
“What are you talking about?” My eyes remain glued to Snow's body in the coffin.
With slow, methodical steps, she circles the coffin. “Her mother once took what was mine. And Snow tried to do the same, through you.”
Her words make no sense, and I grow tired of these riddles. “How did you know Snow's mother?”
“She was Queen Ella. The woman who stole my throne when I was set to marry Henry, Snow's biological father. Now Snow is trying to do the same by marrying you. I won't fall for it. I did what I had to in order to protect our throne.” Mother lays her hands on the glass encasing Snow. “All too easy.”
Sharp breaths stab at my lungs as I fight the urge to lunge at my mother and kill her myself. “So, you're telling me, Snow's really a princess?”
Mother's wicked laughter echoes through the tiny room, rattling Snow's coffin against my hands. “This is why you'll never be king, Darien. You fail to know who sleeps in your very bed.”
That painful ache stirs once again in my heart. I could have married Snow. I could have dethroned my mother. “Did she even know? She would have told me. She lived like a commoner. Why?”
“I removed her mother's memories of royalty as punishment. They lived as they deserved, like animals among the animals.” The aloofness in her words brings me one step closer to making them her last.
I dash across the room and slam her against the wall. “You did this with magic. Her body still glows in a faint purple hue. Evidence of Hestor. You can reverse this!”
More laughter chokes from her throat as I wrap my hand around it. “I dare you, Darien. Show me what you're made of. Prove to me that you're worthy to run this kingdom.”
My fingertips press into her flesh, and her windpipe flexes in my palm. With just a little more pressure I can snap it. Tremors rumble through me as I hold her there, gasping for breath. Even though the love of my life lays in a coffin at her hands, I will not have my mother's blood on mine. I release her, and she drops to the floor.
I slide down the edge of Snow's coffin with my back and bury my face in my hands. The hands that nearly killed my mother. Who am I? What have I become?
Her choking laughter continues to ring in my ears. “This is why I turned Marcus into a bear. He failed me as well.”
“You? You did that to Marcus? And killed my sister?” Rose chokes out. My head snaps up, and I stare at Rose and my brother as they run into the room. Rose drapes her body over the coffin and convulses in sobs.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance. But since Marcus gave up the throne, I let you live. I'm rethinking that decision.” Mother raises her hand and a ball of glowing purple sizzles in her palm.
“Where my brother may have failed to kill you, I will not. Mother.” Marcus leaps into the tiny room and grips mother by the throat, snapping her neck like a twig.
Mother's body slacks as her last breath leaves her lips in a puff of purple mist. Ashes that were once bones crumble in Marcus' fingertips and fall to the floor.
“I'm sorry, brother.” Marcus says as he places a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Had I but known earlier.”
My jaws clench as the pain ricochets through my heart. “None of us knew. She's taken away years of your life, and the love of mine.” I stare back at Snow, hoping that somehow now that Mother's gone perhaps she would arise. That maybe it was only a spell.
Marcus pulls Rose from the coffin, and she collapses in his arms a weeping mess. I fight to remain strong in their presence, but in my soul I weep even more than Rose.
“May I....have a moment alone...with Snow?” I choke out, begging for my brother to leave before my own tears wash me away.
“Of course, brother. If you need anything...” He turns back. Worry floods his eyes.
I nod. “Thank you.”
Marcus sweeps Rose into his arms and carries her from the room. Her soft wails trail behind them. As the moonlight drapes Snow in her glass case, I succumb to the emotions welling in me, and my tears plunk against the coffin.
Draping myself over it as Rose did, I stroke the glass as if it were her face. “I'm so sorry, Snow. I promised to protect you. To love you. And I failed.”
The case beneath me rumbles, jiggling against my body as if there were an earthquake. The glass lining thins and shatters beneath my fingertips and face. I plummet against Snow's body. Where there should be shards of glass there is only air.
Snow's cold body lies beneath mine. I scramble to touch her lifeless face. With a gentle stroke, I trace her porcelain cheek and ruby red lips.
“I love you, Snow. Even in death, I will love you forever.” I sift my hands through her raven locks and crush my mouth to hers for one last lover's kiss.
The minute my lips touch hers, warmth flows through her skin. Her body, once cold to my touch, heats beneath my fingertips. A thump beats against my chest, echoing my own. Her eyes flutter open, and the stunning brown eyes I've ached to look into stare back at me.
She is alive!
Chapter Seven
I work to push through the fog filling my mind as I stare up at Darien over me. His gorgeous mouth hovers over mine, and I long for him to kiss me. Filing through my thoughts, I can only remember an old woman on the road turning into Queen Miriam. The memory strengthens as I recall what she said about my mother. About my lineage. And then I relive the blackness of my death. A scream shoots from my lips.
“Snow!” Darien cries out, clutching to my body.
I try to wrap my arms around him, but my limbs refuse to do as I will them to. Words stick behind closed lips, and frustrated tears ripple over my cheeks.
“Snow, are you alright? Speak to me,” Darien pleads. His frantic gaze traverses my body and locks back onto my eyes.
Tremors rip throu
gh my body as I force words from my mouth. “Darien,” I whisper.
He presses back my hair and pulls me to his chest. “Snow. Oh thank God!” Rocking me against him, his salty tears mix with my own and slick my lips as we kiss.
His tongue sweeps over mine, and energy flows back through my veins. The venom leaves as love refills my heart. His kisses bring me life. I knew that the moment our lips first touched. And now I know why. We are meant to be.
As control returns to my limbs, I wrap them around Darien and pull him closer. I never want to let go. “You saved me with true love's kiss.”
He sucks in a gasp and clenches his jaw. “I wanted to kill her. Seconds away from crushing her, I felt her life draining in my fingertips. Such anger inside me I'd never felt before. I wanted to drown in it and let it take me whole so I could take her life in exchange for yours. What kind of man am I?”
I shake my head and clutch the sides of his face with my hands. “Don't think like that. I'm here. You saved me.” Sadness and anger war in his eyes. My heart hurts watching his pain. “I'm glad you didn't. You are not that kind of man. You are filled with kindness and love.”
He nestles me against him until I straddle his lap on the floor. “If it weren't for Marcus....I couldn't do it, Snow. I couldn't kill her. Even after she killed you. After what she did to Marcus and her allegiance with Hestor in the dark arts...I still could not do it.”
“Marcus is still a good man, but he is what you cannot be. And you are what he cannot be. And I love you, for who you are. For who you taught me to be.” I stroke the worry lines along his face. “Murder, no matter what the circumstance, is not in your nature. And I don't want it to be. You will be a king of the people, for the people.”
He stares into my eyes, but they're no longer filled with the playful joy and love I remember. Pain hollows out the life that once sparkled in them. “I don't know what I would've done had she killed you.”
Leaning in, I brush my mouth over his trembling lips. He needs me now, as I needed him before. Darkness sits in his heart, waiting to eat his soul. I will not let it have him. He is mine.
“I'm right here,” I whisper against his lips. Draping my arms across his shoulders, I curl my fingers against the back of his hair. I must feed him back the life he gave me.
Pressing my breasts to his chest, I twist my mouth against his and sweep him into a kiss. Shudders attack his body in my arms, and I tighten around him as I deepen our kiss. He stills, as if he's afraid to kiss me back.
“Snow, I'm no longer the same man.” Water sheens his eyes.
“I know. You're an even better one now.” I rip open his doublet and shred the linen shirt underneath. Palms flat, I rub along the hairs of his chest, letting his warmth fill me. I slide the clothing over his shoulders, and it puddles on the floor alongside him.
Unlacing my corset, I remove the bodice and toss it to the floor. He stares at me, bewilderment replacing the sadness and anger. My gaze trains his face, down his chest to his trousers as I work him out of them. I slither out from my skirts and chemise, laying them down as a pallet for us on the cold stone floor.
He refuses to look upon my naked body, where at one time he could not look away. Heaviness weighs my heart, but I continue on. Despair will not take him from me. I crawl over his lap, straddling him. Gripping his hands in mine, I cup my breasts as my long hair falls over my shoulders and tickles our bare skin.
Air hitches in his throat, and I watch as his Adam's apple bounces. A smile curls on my lips as I run his hands from my breasts down to my thighs and place them on my bottom. His fingertips twitch against my skin.
Leaning forward, his cock rubs against the soft patch of hair between my legs. He must feel every part of me, know that I am real. Skin to skin, I will bring him back from the edge of the darkness and into my arms where he belongs.
Running my hands along his chest, I cradle the back of his head as I rock my lower lips against him. Teasing him. I force him to look into my eyes and fill mine with everything that's in my heart for him.
His fingers curl deeper into my flesh and it zings warmth to my belly. I trace the outline of his lips with a fingertip. Swiveling my hips, I increase the depth of my movements, rubbing against his growing cock. Life filters back into his eyes as his hunger grows.
“Feel how real I am, Darien. How much I need you.” I lean in, squishing my hard nipples against his chest and press my lips to his ear. “How wet you make me with arousal.”
I nestle against his cock, and the tip slips between my lower lips. He sucks a gasp through clenched teeth. My slickness surrounds his tip as I wiggle against him, sliding him with ease along my clit. Breathy moans escape my lips still pressed against his ear, and he tenses beneath me at the sound.
“Snow,” he chokes out as he grips my ass with both hands.
“I'm here. Don't leave me now.” I slide his cock to the entrance of my channel, positioning my hips on top of him. “Come back to me.”
Easing my hips down, his cock slides inside me. His eyes close as a grunt rushes his lips. Lifting my hips, he slips back out. Desire burns in his eyes as he reopens them. I inch my hips back down his shaft, and this time I'm met with his hips thrusting upward in response.
His hands run the length of my bare back, triggering goose bumps to dance along my skin. I work my hips in rhythm with his as I straddle his lap. Pulling me closer, my breasts squish against his chest as if we're dancing.
A groan rumbles in his throat, and he fists his hands through my hair, gripping my head like a hungry animal as he crushes his mouth to mine. He assaults my mouth with his tongue, unleashing a moan of my own. I love it when he makes love to my mouth as if it was my pussy. He wants all of me, and I want all of him.
We sit, a tangled mass of arms and legs in an undulating dance. My breasts wring with soreness, rubbing hard against his chest with each of his thrusts. He dives face first against my neck, suckling on my flesh as my back arches, and my arms go limp at my sides like a doll. His hands palm against my back, bracing me to him as if I'll break if he lets go; one hand cradling the back of my neck and head, the other my lower back.
Burying his face against my breasts, he releases a moan so loud it rattles my bones. Tense muscles beneath me tell me his orgasm takes hold, and with one final thrust into me, he throws his head back and growls. I ease my rocking and rest upon his hips.
As I fight for breath to return to my lungs, he whips me to the floor, laying me on the pallet of clothing. He disappears from my view, but as his tongue presses against my dripping clit he speaks to me. Thrusting my hips apart, he works his mouth over my pussy. The sensations riddle my body with ecstasy, and I writhe beneath his touch. He spreads me further, as if trying to drown himself in my flesh.
Gripping my ass with one hand he slides a finger in a hole he's never entered before, and I nearly come off the floor. I suck in a gasp of air, and a moan chokes in my throat. He flicks my clit with his tongue, probes my ass with a finger covered in my arousal, and thumbs my channel all at once. I am lost. The world spins and I don't know which way is up or down, and I do not care. The more he massages my clit with his tongue, the deeper he plunges his fingers. A scream climbs its way up from my belly and releases as my orgasm spirals through me.
My body spasms as he slows his movements until the shudders cease. I fight for breath. I fight to move, but my body lays in a helpless mess on the cold floor in a pool of my own arousal.
Darien crawls over me, sliding his sweat slicked body along mine until our eyes lock. “I love you, Snow.” Words fail me as I stare into his eyes. He covers my mouth with his and pulls at my lips in a kiss. “Marry me.”
With wide eyes, I shake my head. “But...I'm a com—”
“Princess. Snow, you're a princess. Even if you weren't, with mother gone, and Marcus abdicating, the throne goes to me. I will change that law by royal decree; we will forever be able to follow our hearts. I want you by my side, Snow. Help me take this kingdom bac
k. Be my wife, my lover, my safety.” He cradles me against his chest, cupping a cheek with his hand.
“What your mother said was true? I'm really a princess? My mother was really royalty?” I say the words, but they hold no meaning for me. I don't believe them.
Darien nods. “She must have been in order to have been a threat to my mother.”
“I still can't believe it,” I whisper, and swallow back the lump of emotions clawing at the back of my throat.
“We will make this kingdom what it once was, a place of prosperity, free of oppression. And I will fill you with lots of babies.” A smile beams across his face. “You will be such a wonderful mother, Snow. Say you'll be my wife.”
His words fill the hole in my heart, and visions of cherub babies with dark hair and joyous smiles run through my head. “Yes.” Warmth floods his blue eyes, driving out the sorrow. I cup his cheek, feathering a fingertip along his skin. “I love you.”
“I've longed to hear those words from your lips. Your note crushed me.” He pulls me close as if I'll slip from his arms.
“I went looking for Rose while I waited for your return, with full intentions of telling her to take the cottage, that I planned to remain here with you, in the castle. They were hidden away in their bed chamber of course, so as I made my way back to my own, I came upon a mirror.” The vision of myself as an evil queen rampages through my head as fresh as if I'd just witnessed it. “It showed me my future, as an evil queen with blood on my hands and darkness in my heart.”
Darien shakes his head, running his large, warm hand along the bare skin of my back. “It was a mere parlor trick of my mother's. Hestor mentored her in the dark arts. Do not believe in it, Snow. You are the purest of hearts.”
“But what if even the pure and innocent can be swayed by darkness? One touch of your fingers inside me and I lost myself to the pleasures of the flesh. What if that happens with evil in my heart?” Fear floods my veins and pools in my eyes, releasing in streams of tears streaking my face.
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